Chat #28 - Alice Slater
"Writing novels is a lot like falling in love"
This interview is free to read. Paid subscriptions support artist honoraria.
Alice Slater is a London-based writer. Her debut novel, Death of a Bookseller, was an instant Sunday Times bestseller and won Debut Crime Book of the Year at the Capital Crime Fingerprint Awards 2024. She also co-hosts the literary podcast What Page Are You On? Her second novel, Let the Bad Times Roll, is out now.
Find Alice at alicemjslater.com
13/04/2026, 19:33 - Finbarre:
Welcome back to Tarot DMs with Finbarre Snarey. Today’s guest is Alice Slater, author of Let the Bad Times Roll and Death of a Bookseller. She is a creator of dark, sharp, twisty fiction, and she has winged eyeliner that would make the Queen of Swords envious. Hello, Alice!
13/04/2026, 19:33 - Alice Slater:
Hi. Hello. Immediately winged eyeliner that would make the Queen of Swords… j- ah, obsessed. Absolutely love that! Hi, it’s so nice to chat, and it’s so nice to meet you.
13/04/2026, 19:34 - Finbarre:
In my travels online, Alice, I noticed that your website, alicemjslater.com, says that it’s somewhere to hang your hat. Can I ask, what hat are you currently wearing at the moment, and is it fabulous?
13/04/2026, 19:35 - Alice Slater:
I am currently wearing my interview hat, which means I’m gonna try and not swear too much try and be normal, try not to overshare and put my best foot forward.
13/04/2026, 19:36 - Finbarre:
I love how you say that you’re going to try to be normal when you’re talking to a man that you’ve not met, somewhere in Nottingham, about tarot cards, over WhatsApp in that way that you just do on any given evening. But we’ll try and be as normal as possible. So today we’ve got some tarot cards to generate some questions and get some inspiration from and investigate your creative journey.
But I need to ask, uh, how familiar, how au fait are you with various tarot decks?
13/04/2026, 19:38 - Alice Slater:
How au fait am I with various tarot decks? Not massively. I have a very modest collection of two. I can’t remember what the famous deck is called. I wanna say Rider-Waite. I have a, a Rider-Waite deck, and then I have the deck that I actually have by my side right now.
13/04/2026, 19:39 - Alice Slater:
13/04/2026, 19:39 - Alice Slater:
I chose this deck to be my companion for this interview because I’ve had it since I was a kid. My mom bought it in a charity shop probably thirty years ago. So I’ve had it for a very long time, and I thought it would be a nice companion on this little journey.
13/04/2026, 19:41 - Finbarre:
Okay, so three observations. The first one is that textured background, that wood, that desk I assume that it is, looks like it’s been so lovingly used. I adore furniture that has just a little bit of scuff and a bit of life to it. That tarot deck, interestingly, is the tarot deck my mum used to have, and the Death or La Mort that is there, that scares the bejesus out of me, hopefully is not a card that will be coming up.
We’ll find out. And the next thing is, your rings are-- they are items of power. You didn’t pick those up in Manchester or something. I’m thinking maybe Affleck’s Palace?
13/04/2026, 19:44 - Alice Slater:
Ah, okay, so the little table that’s actually a really close crop. That is almost the entire size of the table. It’s one of those little side tables that used to be really common, that you’d get like sets of three, and they kind of stack together. I just have the one now. I found it in the street about probably 10 years ago.
Um, a lot of my furniture has been scavenged in that, in that manner. As for the deck of cards, I love that. I wonder if it... It must have been like a, a particularly popular deck maybe in the ‘80s or ‘90s. But it’s a beautiful deck. I love the illustrations. I love the colors of the cards as well.
They’re almost all in primary colors with the occasional peachy or brown hue and the occasional pop of green. I just think they’re really beautiful. I love the cross hatching um, on the images. And my rings. Ah, okay, very astute. They’re not from Affleck’s Palace. They’re from a very rock and roll brand called The Great Frog.
I buy one for every book release. So the um, the, uh, ace of spades my mother bought for me when Death of a Bookseller came out. I bought myself the black enamel winged heart when the paperback came out. I have a fleur-de-lis on the other hand, which I bought when Let the Bad Times Roll came out, and then the big cross I bought for the paperback of Let the Bad Times Roll.
So I’m hoping that I will write at least five books so I can complete my set.
13/04/2026, 19:47 - Finbarre:
Ah, now that makes sense, ‘cause there’s something about those three rings that looks like they’re there by design, and I was sort of burning with curiosity to find out a little bit more about that. Okay, but we have tarot cards to read. Now, the deck we’re gonna use is one that’s very user-friendly. It is the Golden Art Nouveau Tarot.
It’s basically the Rider-Waite-Smith with a bit of bling. It’s a little bit shiny, just to brighten up the day
13/04/2026, 19:47 - Finbarre:
13/04/2026, 19:48 - Alice Slater: And a little brass isopod!
13/04/2026, 19:48 - Finbarre: As somehow it is still April (HOW?) the Anchor card we’re using for every guest is…
13/04/2026, 19:48 - Finbarre: … apparently a very interesting smelling card for Beigli my cat
13/04/2026, 19:49 - Finbarre:
13/04/2026, 19:49 - Alice Slater: Awww what an angel!!! I feel this is a good omen
13/04/2026, 19:49 - Finbarre:
13/04/2026, 19:50 - Finbarre:
So you get an oh so shiny fool complete with accompanying pooch, and I understand you’re a dog fan
13/04/2026, 19:50 - Alice Slater:
I am. I’m a fan of both dogs and fools would you like to see my little daughter?
13/04/2026, 19:50 - Finbarre:
I just had a song playing through my head as I do sometimes with fools to the left of me, pooches to the right. Yes, I would love to see a picture
13/04/2026, 19:52 - Alice Slater:
13/04/2026, 19:52 - Finbarre: WHO IS THIS?
13/04/2026, 19:53 - Alice Slater: Her name is Peachy!
13/04/2026, 19:53 - Finbarre: Something about her fur looks like she has been masterfully painted. What a bright beastie!
13/04/2026, 19:53 - Alice Slater: 😭
13/04/2026, 19:54 - Finbarre:
Right, so let’s go back to the Fool card where you’re there at the precipice on the cliff edge, and you’ve got your best beastie just there peach ears going, “Maybe you shouldn’t be jumping into the unknown.” My tarot question for you is... what leap of faith did you take when you left book selling to pursue your writing?
13/04/2026, 19:57 - Alice Slater:
So I didn’t leave bookselling to pursue creative writing, but I did leave bookselling to become a corporate copywriter. I switched from retail to an office job, which certainly paved the way to be able to dedicate more time to my fiction, although that was not the intention with which I changed careers.
I was devastated to leave bookselling. Bookselling was a really big part of my identity. It was a big part of my passion. Uh, it’s still something which I care a lot about, both in terms of the, you know, success of bookshops, but also the role in which they play to help books find their readers and find their books.
So I guess the leap of faith there was that, um, a belief that I could be happier. I think I make a lot of my decisions based on that question “Could I be happier?”
13/04/2026, 19:57 - Finbarre: I adore the glamorous flash of leopard print there too. She knows how to dress for the beach.
13/04/2026, 19:57 - Alice Slater: She gets her love of leopard print from her mother 🥹
13/04/2026, 19:59 - Finbarre:
If that happiness was a tarot card itself, what would be in the illustration for you?
13/04/2026, 20:00 - Alice Slater:
The full moon at her biggest and most buttery
13/04/2026, 20:00 - Alice Slater:
A martini with a twist
13/04/2026, 20:01 - Alice Slater:
I can’t think of a way to frame this that doesn’t sound really cheesy but a gathered crowd of people who are celebratory
13/04/2026, 20:01 - Alice Slater:
And I guess some kind of cottage to represent stability.
13/04/2026, 20:02 - Alice Slater:
I guess I would summarize those images as stability good people to support you as you embrace change and a lovely drink to wash it all down with.
13/04/2026, 20:02 - Finbarre:
Alice, as we approach your second card, I can’t offer you a celebratory crowd, but I can offer you some brass bugs. So here we have a brass butterfly. We’ve got a regular fly, we’ve got a brass beetle, and of course the brass woodlouse as well. And they’ll all come to find out what your second card is.
13/04/2026, 20:03 - Alice Slater: It IS exciting! I have a brass fly next to me that opens to reveal a swarm of garnets.
13/04/2026, 20:04 - Finbarre:
Between them all, I hope they all bring some luck your way. We have the cards here. They’re being shuffled. So when the moment feels right.
I have just dropped one. It ejected itself from the deck and flung itself across the room. Your choice is, do you think that card was desperate to be seen or desperately getting away? Let me know if you want me to continue shuffling or if that’s the card you would like?
13/04/2026, 20:06 - Alice Slater:
As soon as you said a card had flew out the deck, I was like, “That’s my bloody card. That’s the card that’s calling me.” Ooh and as I said that, the book I’m reading just fell off the sofa, and it’s a very occult novel. So I don’t know, read into that as you will.
13/04/2026, 20:07 - Finbarre:
13/04/2026, 20:07 - Finbarre: The Queen of Pentacles!
13/04/2026, 20:07 - Alice Slater: Great to see the gang
13/04/2026, 20:08 - Finbarre:
If you would kindly ignore the brass entourage there, what vibes or feelings do you have about this card?
13/04/2026, 20:09 - Alice Slater:
So based purely on the aesthetics of the card, because I do not know what our good queen represents she looks simultaneously very powerful and yet peace she’s surrounded by nature and she looks absolutely gorgeous.
13/04/2026, 20:12 - Finbarre:
Ah, doesn’t she just? Plus she has that little hare familiar there as well. So I don’t know if you’re familiar with the various suits. You have the cups, and you have the pentacles, and you have the swords, and you have the wands, and each one corresponds to a different element. So of course, these are Earth, the physical realm, material pleasures, and the queen represents a grounded abundance.
13/04/2026, 20:12 - Finbarre:
It’s a card of competence paired with a kindness. It’s someone who manages their responsibilities without losing the empathy that they would normally hold. And she’s independent. She supports others, but she’s welcome instead of imposing. And that abundance is cultivated through care
So if she was to ask you a question, Alice Slater, she would be saying, “What sustains you?”
13/04/2026, 20:15 - Alice Slater:
Oh man, what a beautiful card. That’s beautiful. I really like that
13/04/2026, 20:18 - Alice Slater:
Ooh, I’m finding this one so difficult to answer without making myself cringe and that’s made me realize that the nature of this interview, you know, interviewing via voice note rather than via the written word and also via the medium of tarot means I’m not doing what I normally do, which is pepper my responses with lots of kind of humor and silliness which is kind of a, a bit of a, a veil to hide behind.
Whereas the nature of this means I’m, I’m being forced to be a lot more earnest than I would normally would be. But yeah, what sustains me? I think truthfully the thing that sustains me is, is people. It’s my, my friends and my, my family, my colleagues conversations with strangers in bars. I really feed off the energy of others and I hope that I also nourish others with my energy.
Earlier when we were talking about what happiness would look like on my fictional tarot card, um, I mentioned a celebratory crowd and I realized that that could be misconstrued as an audience, whereas what I really mean is community. I think community is what sustains me.
13/04/2026, 20:23 - Finbarre:
Now in that very spirit, a member of the writing community, Emma van Straaten, writer of This Immaculate Body, has a particular card for you. She drew this when we spoke just a few days back. I’ll place it down and we’ll see if it’s a good one.
13/04/2026, 20:24 - Alice Slater: LOVE Emma! Loved This Immaculate Body!
13/04/2026, 20:24 - Finbarre:
13/04/2026, 20:24 - Finbarre: This was the exact card she drew…
13/04/2026, 20:24 - Finbarre:
13/04/2026, 20:24 - Alice Slater: Ooooh wow
13/04/2026, 20:25 - Finbarre: This is the equivalent from the deck I have here
13/04/2026, 20:26 - Alice Slater: Ace of Cups? 👀
13/04/2026, 20:28 - Finbarre:
Now, if it was just the Ace of Cups, it would be a very pleasant, very welcome card of a… an emotional wellspring. But we also have the One of Water, which to me has a very slight warning to it. It has a Sedna-like feel, the water goddess. It reminds me of Scylla, the many-headed creature that would bother sailors.
I say bother, tear them limb from limb, uh, with big gnashing jaws. So this is a card of duality. So the question I’ll ask you is: How can you tell when a story has depth?
13/04/2026, 20:29 - Alice Slater:
Incidentally, I absolutely love Scylla. I think she’s a vibe.
13/04/2026, 20:30 - Alice Slater:
Ooh, God, that’s a really interesting question, how to tell when a story has depth there’s lots of different ways to interpret what we mean by depth in this context, and I’m gonna go with the interpretation which feels most relevant to where I am with my creative practice right now.
13/04/2026, 20:33 - Alice Slater:
So I’m thinking a lot about depth of feeling. I think often when we’re struggling with a project, it tends to be because we are not obsessed with it. I think that writing novels is a lot like falling in love. You can have a lot of false starts. You can play around, you can play the field, experiment. But when it’s right, it feels so right.
You are obsessed with it. You cannot stop thinking about it. Everything feels like it relates to it. It’s constantly on your mind. And I think at the moment I’m working on my third book. I’m halfway through, and I’ve slowly realized that I’m maybe not obsessed with it enough. So I’ve spent all day today thinking about whether or not this is something that I can rekindle.
What’s wrong? What am I missing? What’s lacking? Why are my feelings towards this project shallow when I want them to be deep? So that’s what I’ve been thinking about a lot, and although I’m very confident that I love so much about it, I’m not sure if what I currently have is the one. Which feels like a really scary thing to say in an interview, but I think this is how I work.
Death of a Bookseller went through many different iterations before I figured out exactly what story I wanted to tell. Let the Bad Times Roll also went through many different drafts, many different plots, different characters, different settings before I figured out exactly what I needed for me to fall madly, deeply in love with the book.
And that’s where I am now with this one. I’ve made lots of intellectual decisions, but I need to start making emotional decisions, um, for the work to really sing and for me to really fall in love with it.
13/04/2026, 20:38 - Finbarre:
As I’ve never written a book myself and trying to bring the inspiration to find the right words on a card for one of my colleagues in the office is so difficult, I can only picture what a Herculean effort your first book was. Your second book, Let the Bad Times Roll, I’m curious, how long did that take to write?
13/04/2026, 20:43 - Alice Slater:
I started Let the Bad Times Roll in the summer of 2022, and I handed in the very final draft in January 2025, and it was published in July 2025 so it took two and a half years the only thing that the final draft which is now available as a paperback from all good bookshops has in common with that first draft that I started summer twenty twenty two is a psychic element otherwise every single thing changed a dozen times while I was trying to feel my way through the novel work out what I wanted to say work out what I wanted it to be so yeah it was a real journey but two and a half years is the straight answer
13/04/2026, 20:45 - Finbarre:
I was thinking back to what you were saying about drawing energy and support from the community around you, and it put into my mind a poem that I love dearly by Charles Baudelaire called Crowds. And the first line of that is, “It is not given to every person to take a bath of multitude. Enjoying a crowd is an art.”
So if you’re the kind of person who is vitalized, is creatively made anew by the people around you, what activities or parties or events are you looking forward to, to top up that Ace of Cups?
13/04/2026, 20:46 - Alice Slater: “Enjoying a crowd is an art” – I absolutely love that
13/04/2026, 20:46 - Finbarre: https://allpoetry.com/Crowds
IT IS SO GOOD - even better in French
13/04/2026, 20:48 - Alice Slater:
Oh, I love this question. I love it because I love thinking about all the fun things that I have lined up. Gigs is a big one. I love live music, so I’m seeing The Offspring, The Stranglers, Korn, Deftones. I’m probably forgetting someone else. Oh, System of a Down. I love to be part of a crowd during live music.
I also love to observe the crowd. I love to watch people dance, mosh, sing all together in sync. I think that’s really magical. I love making plans with my friends. I’m going on a bat walk in May with my friend Joe. I’m hoping to go to Lisbon to visit my friend Miguel. Me and my bestie Emily have just made a fun little plan for Tuesday night.
I have a lovely little date lined up. What else? Yeah, I think that’s it. That’s it for the minute. Just lots of beautiful things with wonderful people
13/04/2026, 20:49 - Alice Slater: I can’t wait to read it!
13/04/2026, 20:50 - Finbarre:
2026 sounds like a lovely place to be for Alice Slater. You’ve got your cards with you. Now it’s your time to shine-- or your mum’s cards’ time to shine. Give them a shuffle. Have a think about which card you’d like to pass on to the next person. If there’s one that, like yours, ejects itself out like a C90 from a cassette deck, we’ll go with that one.
Otherwise, whichever one feels right to you
13/04/2026, 20:51 - Alice Slater:
Okay, I’ve got my cards. I really enjoy the sound the cards make as you riffle them, so I’m gonna do the same.
Shuffling sounds. These cards are beautiful. They’re so old, they smell of vanilla, like secondhand books, which I think is very beautiful. Okay, nothing jumped out. I’m gonna split the deck, give it a little knot, and I’m gonna show you the card
13/04/2026, 20:52 - Alice Slater:
13/04/2026, 20:55 - Finbarre:
Of all of the 78 cards in a deck, I would struggle to think of one that would be a finer gift. This is a card of confidence. The Six of Wands is success after considerable effort of being publicly recognized, of the spotlight beaming down, of a moment of renewed self-belief. Wow.
13/04/2026, 20:56 - Finbarre: A generous card indeed!
13/04/2026, 20:56 - Alice Slater:
Ooh, I can’t wait to see who gets that card i hope that it resonates with them.
13/04/2026, 20:57 - Finbarre:
What a gloriously high note to leave this episode on. So you’ve been listening to Tarot DMs with Alice Slater, a writer who knows exactly how to turn a brilliant premise into something deliciously unsettling. I suspect that somewhere offstage, Peachy has hopefully approved of the whole thing.
13/04/2026, 20:58 - Alice Slater: Thank you so much! That was fabulous ✨