Recently, our reviewer David Simms had an opportunity to interview Alice Henderson, author of A Solitude of Wolverines, published late in 2020 and reviewed earlier this year. We’re sharing it now, as part of Women in Horror Month!
David: You have a new thriller out, A Solitude of Wolverines. Can you tell us a little about the inspiration for it?
Alice: In addition to being a writer, I’m a wildlife researcher. I travel to remote locations and do species presence studies. I was out in the field in Montana, setting up remote cameras in the hopes of capturing images of wolverines on a wildlife sanctuary there. I got the sudden inspiration to bring my writing and wildlife work together and create a suspenseful series that would both entertain readers and inform people about the plight of different species. I chose wolverines for the first book because so few people know about them, and they are in trouble. They are the largest members of the weasel family, weighing in around 35 pounds, and are important members of their ecosystem. For instance, in winter, many animals such as coyotes, foxes, and other types of weasels follow wolverines to the best scavenging sites, which aids in the survival of those species. They used to roam as far south as New Mexico and as far east as the Great Lakes, but a combination of habitat fragmentation, anthropogenic climate change, overtrapping, and other threats has reduced the wolverine population to less than 300 in the lower 48.
David: The love of the environment is apparent in your novels, from your incredible debut Voracious to this new title. Is this a conscious decision, to bring awareness to readers or to simply utilize these stunning settings as their own character?
Alice: Thank you so much for the compliment on Voracious! I really loved writing that one. Yes, it is absolutely a conscious decision to bring awareness to the plight of species. It’s very important to me to help struggling species in whatever ways I can. It’s an extra bonus that the remote locations where species like wolverines live are excellent isolated settings that are conducive to suspense.
David Your background is, to say the least, varied and impressive. I know that readers would love to know what it’s like to work for George Lucas. What can you tell us about that time?
Alice: There were a lot of great aspects to working for Lucas. I was surrounded with a lot of fellow creative people. We would eat lunch at Skywalker Ranch, and there was a display case in the main house there with things like Indiana Jones’s fedora and whip, the idol from Raiders of the Lost Ark, and Cherlindrea’s wand from Willow. We’d have these huge parties for Halloween and Christmas. The Halloween costumes people created were stunning! No one went small. I remember one person created a Titanic costume that was even wired for electricity. Two people were in it and it could break in half when a third person, dressed as an iceberg, crashed into it. There were also a lot of wonderful private screenings of movies.
David: You’re a wildlife researcher, right? How has that impacted your writing? Is it tough not to talk too much about the science and details in your writing, especially in a fast-paced thriller, when the passion for these animals is so strong?
Alice: I am a wildlife researcher, yes. I do a lot of species presence studies to determine what species are using a particular piece of land. I walk transects and look for spoor, set out remote cameras, and place out bioacoustic recorders. One of my specialties is bats. By examining the recordings of their echolocation calls, I can determine what bat species are present. I also do a lot of remote computer work, such as mapping sanctuaries and designing wildlife corridors. When depicting this research in my fiction, it can be tough to strike a good balance between being technical enough to interest readers who love science, and not so technical that it can turn a reader off. I try to take a middle ground that will pique readers’ interest while still maintaining the pace of the suspense.
David: Readers love to know what inspires authors to do what they do. Who are your biggest creative influences – and why?
Alice: One of my favorite writers is Robert McCammon. He truly brings settings and characters to life. I feel like I could call those characters up on the phone. He engages all the senses, making readers feel like they’ve been in that place, in that time. His fiction was really an inspiration for me to include the senses in a vivid way in my own writing. I also love the wilderness settings and mysteries of Nevada Barr; the combination of science and history used by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child; the action of James Rollins novels; and the tough character of V. I. Warshawski by Sara Paretsky.
David: I’ve seen the photo of you at the Arctic Circle. Your adventures have taken you all over the world. What has been your wildest adventure – yet?
Alice: I would have to say it was that trip to the Canadian Arctic! It was an incredible journey. We drove up the Dempster Highway, 740 km of dirt, to Inuvik, Northwest Territories. From there, we took the new Tuktoyaktuk road, 138 km of even rougher dirt all the way to the Arctic Ocean. We spent months exploring the Yukon and Northwest Territories on that trip, taking in vistas of tundra and seeing it change from the greens of summer to the reds and golds of fall, to the white of winter. I delighted in seeing collared pikas, the northerly cousins of our American pikas, grizzly bears digging for roots in fields, black-phase red foxes bounding on the tundra.
On that same trip, we took a little float plane out to Katmai National Park and lived among huge Alaskan brown bears for a time. They were fishing as the salmon spawned upstream. These massive bears would stand at the top of a waterfall and catch the salmon as they leaped in mid-air.
David: Is there a top destination on your wishlist?
Alice: Definitely Antarctica. I’d love to get embedded with a research team and spend a season down there. Setting a novel there would be an extra bonus! To set foot on that continent would be a dream come true.
David: What can readers do to help the new administration of this country focus on helping the environment regain some of what the animals need to survive?
Alice: Right now there’s a bill in the House of Representatives that is waiting to be brought to the floor for a vote. It’s called the Paw & Fin Act and would restore and strengthen the Endangered Species Act, which has been under attack and weakened in recent years. Readers can write and tweet to their representatives and urge them to bring the bill to the floor for a vote. In addition, encourage your representatives to support legislation that will tackle climate change.
David: We’ve all had to adjust during this pandemic. How have you coped, stayed sane, and thrived?
Alice: I’ve been sheltering since March. Normally I travel far afield during the summer field season for wildlife research, but this summer I stayed home. That felt really strange, so I tried to keep as busy as possible. I kept up with my local species like bats and the American pika, and wrote the second novel in the Alex Carter series. I also built a radio telescope and have been listening to storms on Jupiter. I make stop-motion shorts, and I began pre-production on my latest one.
David: You’ve written in other people’s universes, primarily Buffy The Vampire Slayer and Supernatural,two of the coolest series to have ever aired. Can you explain a little about those adventures and would you return there?
Alice: I loved writing the two Buffy the Vampire Slayer novels and the Supernatural novel. Both were shows I really enjoyed, so delving into those universes was a blast. It’s fun to take characters you love and create new adventures for them. The second Buffy novel I wrote was a Choose Your Own Adventure style novel called Night Terrors. That was a challenge! It has something like twenty-one different endings, and I created a huge flowchart on my wall to tie everything together. The other Buffy novel, Portal Through Time, won a Scribe Award (the award given by the International Media Tie-In Writers Association), and I felt really honored. Writing the Supernatural novel Fresh Meat was fascinating because I got to dig into the history of the Donner Party and research a mythological monster that I’d never seen anyone use before. I’d absolutely write another tie-in novel.
David: Finally, what’s next for Alex Carter and Alice Henderson?
Alice: The second book in the Alex Carter series is written and off to my editor. In it, Alex journeys up to the Canadian Arctic to study polar bears and must fight for her life out on the ice. The months I spent in the Canadian Arctic were truly inspirational, and I loved setting the next Alex Carter in the magic of that setting. It’ll be out in Fall 2021.
Thank you so much for the interview!
Follow Us!