Alice Feeney
speaker
194 appearances
1 recordings
1 series
first heard Jan 2025
last heard Jan 2025
Alice Feeney’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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Appearances
Oh, I don't do Uber, no.
No, I think Amberley sounds like a perfect place. And unfortunately, it's just in my head, but it's this place where you're a little bit cut off, but in a nice way, I think. Not everybody in the book would agree with me.
it's not too far off right like it doesn't sound so outlandish that it couldn't be true which is what I like about it and there are tiny islands in the Scottish Hebrides that are a little bit like Amberley where some of the ideas came from where there really is just a ferry twice a week and if you miss it or if there's a storm you're not getting on and off the island and the same with the doctor I remember reading about this tiny island where
The doctor only visits on Tuesdays. Imagine that you can only get ill on a Tuesday or you're going to be in big trouble. But I love these tiny places where there's this real sense of community.
But if it's not something you're used to or if you're someone who's quite private, it could be your worst nightmare because rural community based places that are in the middle of nowhere are sometimes not the isolated havens that you think they are.
It was really interesting and very different. So I went from working in the middle of the world's busiest newsroom at the BBC in London to working all day in my shed with my dog. So I had so many people that I was working with, hundreds of people within the newsroom to just me and my dog. It was very different. But I dreamed of being an author for so long. It took me a really long time.
I spent almost 10 years writing books, sending them off, collecting multiple rejection letters. I just could not get an agent. And sometimes the rejection letters would be really lovely, very polite news.
They would say that they liked the book, but it wasn't quite right for them. Or they enjoyed it, but it wasn't the right book to try and launch a new author. And could I maybe send them my next book? And my favorite ever rejection came from a really lovely agent who I did not know, who I had submitted one book to, who wrote me this, I think, lovely rejection letter.
But at the end, she said, I think you can do better. And I remember feeling a little bit beaten up because, you know, rejection is hard. But also I thought, well, how do you know? You don't know me. You don't know me. Maybe this is as good as I've got. I've been trying for years to do this. But something about that particular letter made me think,
yeah I can and I will and then I'll send another book to you um and by the time I actually managed to get published she had retired that's how long it took me but she was so kind and she remembered me and she actually got in touch when I did my first deal to say I thought you'd do this one day so so it's funny how rejection sometimes can be a good thing you know it just it makes you want to try even harder to get that thing that you've always dreamed of and
eventually I wrote a book called Sometimes I Lie and then everything changed.
I think I've just always had this slight obsession with stories. Okay. Even as a child. Sure. You know, if the real world felt too loud or too dark, I would hide inside a book and I would read a book. And I think for me, even though now I'm a lot older, I'm the same in that way. I still hide inside a story if I think the world is too loud.
And for me, the world is always a little bit too loud, especially now. So I've gone from hiding inside books by reading them to reading them and writing them. But it's the same with all forms of escapism in terms of stories. I love watching TV shows. I love watching movies. And I think we all need that sometimes just to disappear down the rabbit hole to get away from reality.
Yes, obsessed with his books. And I've definitely gone through phases in my career. This is book seven for me, and I've just handed in book eight, which was really scary. It's always so scary handing in a new book. But I remember with His and Hers in particular, I spent nearly a year writing a book, and I loved the book, and then I decided that I couldn't let anybody read it.
There was something wrong with it, and I didn't know what was wrong with it. But I'm very secretive as an author. I don't tell anyone, even my agents, my publishers. Nobody knows what I'm writing until I finish the book. So I sent an email to my agent. I remember I was in Wales. I was in a horrible Airbnb. It stank of damp. There was a terrible storm. There were dead seals on the beach.
It was a really horrible trip. And then I sat in the window of this horrible Airbnb writing an email to my agent saying, I'm so sorry, I feel like I've let you and everyone down. I can't send the book in. And he said, just send it. I'm sure it's not as bad as you think. And I said, no, there's something wrong. But don't worry, I'm going to write another one.
And he said, let me talk to your publishers. We can push back the deadline. It's going to be fine. I said, no, no, no. The whole book is in my head. I just need to write it. I can do it in three months. And, um, I always do three drafts before anyone reads it. So I did three drafts in three months and I hit send, which is as terrifying now as it was then. And everyone loved the book.
And that book was his and hers, which is my best behaved book. What is best behaved? It just wrote itself.
I just sat in the shed with my dog I had no social life whatsoever for three months but I got the book done and I think those are my Grady Green moments when everything else just stops life stops the house turns into a giant mess my hair I've got naturally very curly hair in situations like that it grows sideways there'll be robins nesting in in the background um so I understand Grady's obsession with when you get a story in your head and you have to write it
So that was definitely his and hers for me. And the badly behaved book, the one I couldn't figure out how to fix, I came back to it maybe a year later and I could see what was wrong finally, but I didn't know how to fix it. So I wrote a book called Rock, Paper, Scissors. Then I came back to the naughty one again and I read it again and now I knew how to fix it.
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