Writer and award-winning novelist, Sarah Bailey, joined me to talk about her latest (and first standalone) novel, ‘The Housemate’.
Topics discussed include:

-	The origins of the idea. How it had been lodged in Sarah’s brain for several years and eventually became ‘The Housemate’. 
-	Choosing to set the story (the main timeline) in 2015 – when the medium of podcasts were still somewhat in their infancy, and true-crime podcasts in particular were yet to take off. 
-	How character Cooper Ng embodied the emergence of the ‘new’ type of journalist, in contrast with the ‘old school’ type exemplified in main character Olive ‘Oli’ Groves. The contrast between the two and their methods. 
-	Why cases like the fictional ‘Housemate Homicide’ and real life/true crime cases can have such an impact on Australia’s collective psyche – ‘I can remember the headlines, but for the life of me, I can’t remember the details of the case’.
-	The shifting and possibly alarming way in which Australians/the world consume true-crime, including the emergence of internet sleuths and the like – how they have a tendency to fail to appreciate the lives lost/the victims at the centre of the cases, and are instead swept up in the craze of the culture. 
-	The way in which the scape has shifted for journalists doing their job – no longer afforded the ‘anonymity to hide behind the byline’ – making the work even more dangerous and subject to horrific online harassment and/or worse.  
-	How it felt to write a standalone novel after the Gemma Woodstock trilogy. 
-	And so very much more! 
Thanks heaps to Sarah for chatting with me on the show, you can get your hands on a copy of ‘The Housemate’ from A&U publishing house, here:

https://www.allenandunwin.com/browse/books/fiction/crime-mystery/The-Housemate-Sarah-Bailey-9781760529338

Sarah Bailey Discussing 'The Housemate'

A program founded and hosted by author and interviewer Samuel Elliott, that features a broad and disparate range of writer folk guests, ranging from international best-selling authors, to debut novelists or those as-yet unpublished writers. Regardless of what stage of their career they might be at, all of them are united by a love of writing, as well as having overcome some brutal challenges to get to where they are. This program will discuss not only each guest’s latest and greatest work or project, but also delve into what they’ve faced and conquered along their way to inevitable success.
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Sarah Bailey Discussing 'The Housemate'

The Write Way Podcast