This episode features host Adam Charles’s conversation with Maria Alexander, author and screenwriter, about her debut novel Mr. Wicker, which received positive reviews including from Publishers Weekly: “Convincing in its haunting whimsy, Alexander’s emotionally complex fairy tale comments on grim reality with chilling metaphors.”
The book is a dark urban fantasy with fairy tale elements about Alicia Baum, who encounters Mr. Wicker – an enigmatic being and librarian of lost childhood memories residing in a world beyond death – after an attempted suicide. The conversation explores the story’s 17-year journey from novella to screenplay to novel, and the challenges of adapting the same story across different media.
Career Origins and Entry into Screenwriting
Gaming Background (1988-89): Alexander started writing for games with Dead Earth Productions, a live-action role-playing company running “totally immersive, like holodeck games” – Lovecraftian horror in the Bay Area.
First Script Produced: A friend who was an assistant director on movies asked her to write something for a Forrest J. Ackerman anthology. Her very first screenplay, The Dark Sight (a half-hour Lovecraftian pastiche), was produced – “which was just totally magical.” The anthology ultimately fell apart when the producer never got his act together, leaving Ackerman “really pissed” years later for wasting his time.
Flash Forward Film Seminar: This is where Alexander and Charles first met. Part of the program required getting a film mentor.
Securing Clive Barker as Mentor: Alexander’s first choice was Clive Barker, but nobody answered her letters – except Barker’s assistant, who said Clive was writing a book. A week before Halloween, Alexander found a creepy rubber ball made of fingers pointing outward in a San Francisco Halloween shop. She wrapped it in blood-red tissue, put it in a box with a fairy card, and wrote: “Dear Clive, please be my film mentor and point the way. P.S., that is when you’re able.” It arrived at his studio on Halloween. November 1st, his assistant called: “Clive has agreed to be your mentor.”
Going Beyond Requirements: Barker agreed before even knowing what was required and did more than the program asked. During one phone conversation, Chris Carter (of X-Files) was sitting in the background – “I was dying.”
Moving to L.A.: Alexander arrived in L.A. intending to be a screenwriter but immediately developed major carpal tunnel disability. She continued writing with voice technology but eventually decided: “I just do not like this industry. It’s just not for me.”
The Genesis and Evolution of Mr. Wicker
The Original Short Story (10,000 words)
Neil Gaiman’s Input: The first person to read the initial story was Neil Gaiman, who was giving Alexander feedback at the time – “a very informal mentorship, more like just friends.” His crucial note changed everything: “This is an adult fairy tale. And basically, Alicia needs to see Mr. Wicker three times.”
The Transformation: Alexander realized that for Alicia to see Mr. Wicker a third time, “it had to be a much bigger story.” She decided to save that expansion for a screenplay rather than rewrite the short story.
Short Story Structure: Alicia slits her wrists in the first paragraph, has an encounter with Mr. Wicker in the Library of Lost Childhood Memories where he tells her about the deadly memories she left with him as a child (causing all her misery), she doesn’t believe him, he saves her, she goes home, has a few therapy sessions, and sees Mr. Wicker one more time.
Adapting to Screenplay (1999)
Research-Driven Changes: Researching mental health procedures in California, Alexander discovered they wouldn’t just let someone go home after a suicide attempt – there would be a 24-hour lockdown minimum, possibly 72 hours depending on behavior. This became “an opportunity for a lot more interaction.”
Dr. Farron Introduced: The character wasn’t in the original short story. The entire romance subplot, the clinical perspective of someone researching “a phenomenon called Mr. Wicker,” and the doctor’s relationship with Alicia were screenplay additions. Charles notes this has “a very Clive Barker kind of feel to it… a little bit like Candyman.”
Alexander’s Description: “If Neil and Clive and I had a threesome, Mr. Wicker would be the love child… and Tim Powers would be the godfather.”
Casting Vision: When writing the screenplay, Alexander pictured John Cusack as Dr. Farron. Charles (who had just watched 1408) kept picturing Lee Pace throughout the novel – a choice Alexander loved, though she joked Pushing Daisies “might be too cute for me.”
Industry Response (1999): Alexander got many meetings from the script (which did well in the Nicholl Fellowship), but “the word, the phrase urban fantasy did not exist” in 1999. Executives understood Tim Burton and Clive Barker but not something “magical, and fantastical, and dark, but not… everybody’s bleeding all over the floor every five minutes.” It wasn’t until films like Pan’s Labyrinth that “people started to see the possibilities in these darker fairy tales.”
Universal Feedback: “Every single person I talked to said, I want to know more about Mr. Wicker, and I want to see more of Mr. Wicker.” But he’s “freaking stuck in a library” – a supernatural being whose world seemed difficult to expand.
Converting to Novel (2004-2014)
Timeline: Alexander started in earnest in 2004, thought she had a good draft in 2008, but after feedback from the Odyssey critiquing service (a prestigious genre editing service with big-name authors) and other readers, she realized one more rewrite was necessary – because of the ending.
The Ending Problem: In the screenplay, people never raised issues with the ending. But in novel form, “some people were offended by the ending, other people thought it was too pedestrian.” Alexander knew something was wrong.
Charles’s Theory on Why: In a movie, shorthand works – an evil character does evil things without much nuance. “In a novel, your reader is probably expecting something more nuanced and more dimensional than that.”
The New Ending: Influenced by reading more crime novels and thinking about mysteries and thrillers, Alexander hit on “something a lot more nuanced, and something just so unexpected… something so horrific, and so out there, that you’re not expecting.” She planted red herrings and clues throughout, creating surprises even Dr. Farron thinks he has figured out. “I wanted to avoid any Johnny explain it all… when it happens, you’re like, oh, yeah, oh, God, oh, no, yeah, okay.”
The Hunchback of Notre Dame Connection: While pitching the screenplay, Alexander started seeing similarities to The Hunchback of Notre Dame (also The Phantom of the Opera). This led to creating Dr. Sark – a concrete villain, a sociopath whose full extent of badness remains uncertain. In a Miyazaki-influenced story where “people simply have conflicting desires” and “nobody is actually a bad guy,” Sark provided necessary dramatic anchoring.
Historical Research: The backstory expansion required extensive research into Gauls and Druids during a specific historical period.
Research Process with Dr. James Moscovich
Alexander wanted the historical fantasy section “completely infused with historic details,” not just “invention backed up with a few historical details.”
Finding an Expert: At UCLA library, she found scholarly journal articles by Dr. James Moscovich (teaching at University of Ottawa/Western University of Ottawa). She emailed him explaining her project, and “bless his heart, he just took me under his wing, and made me one of his students.”
The Scholar’s Value: Through extensive email exchanges, Moscovich provided references leading Alexander to the LA Central Library’s multi-story collection. “A librarian can help you find books, but a scholar knows which ones are crap, and which ones are legit.” He directed her to the most reliable sources available (noting good information about Gauls is limited).
Vetting the Writing: Moscovich read the historical section (15,000 words total) and gave limited notes. One concern: a character “there’s no way he would have been in that part of the country at that time.” Alexander decided: “This is the one rule I’m going to bend. Everything else is ridiculously accurate.”
Charles’s Response: The historical material was so compelling he wanted either more in the novel or “a companion volume about that period… a very powerful period… really the turning point in European history.”
Writing Challenges: Screenplay to Novel
Prose Style Issues
Screenwriter’s Dilemma: Alexander “suffered a lot of issues that a lot of screenwriters do when they start writing prose.” Having published short stories helped with POV, but other problems emerged – particularly “just the wordiness… rambling on and on.”
The 15,000-Word Cut: Her 2009 draft required cutting 15,000 words: “Why did it take three sentences to say what I could say in one sentence?”
Finding Balance: The challenge was “what’s the difference between poetic and purple?” She wanted to be evocative without being flowery: “In a book, you don’t just have free reign to just cut off the mouth.”
Charles’s Perspective: He struggles with prose fiction because of screenplay training: “I’m always thinking, is there a shorter way I can say that?” He also finds adapting his own scripts difficult because “the script was designed visually… I know there are choices I made in telling the story that I would not make if I had written it as a novel first.”
Keeping Inspiration: It’s “hard to keep the inspiration going on a story that I’ve already told,” but Alexander found “new angles” that energized her.
The 17-Year Haunting
The Origin Experience: The story originated from a deeply haunting and profound experience at the end of September 1997. The book was published almost exactly 17 years later. “I’ve been haunted by this story for like 17 years… there has to be something, an obsessive quality about it.”
The Puzzle: The full story of this experience is hidden in a transmedia puzzle at the end of the book trailer. “I never wanted to put that into an interview because it would rob it of its power.” Solving the puzzle (consulting with transmedia experts) unlocks the story told by Alexander with music – “a whole transmedia experience” from her gaming background.
Exercised Now: With publication, Alexander feels she’s finally completed what mattered most: “I just wanted Mr. Wicker to breathe the air… to be out in the world.” She has ideas for two prequels and a possible sequel but no longer has the burning desire she had before.
Other Projects and Future Plans
Mrs. Winchester Script: Alexander is “totally freaking obsessed with Sarah Winchester” for over 20 years – this will “for sure” become a novel adaptation.
Snowed (YA Trilogy): Currently finishing the first book of a trilogy about a 16-year-old engineering prodigy whose social worker mother brings home mysterious runaway Aiden to foster for the holidays. They fall in love, but her biggest school bully is found brutally murdered on the football field, followed by violent animal deaths. Her skeptics club investigates, discovering Aiden’s “terrible family secret” that “threatens not just them, but the world as they know it.” Readers’ response: “Oh my God, when is the next one going to be done?”
Marketing and Social Media Strategy
The Non-Marketing Marketing: Holcomb describes Alexander as having “a very non-marketing marketing approach,” effectively following the modern internet marketing model (referencing the book Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook – 90% authentic connection, 10% promotion).
The France Breakthrough: Living in France for a year, Alexander noticed strangers following her blog and interacting when she talked about something personal but not about writing. “I realized that if I had something interesting to say or something funny to say, then I could engage with people and I also wasn’t getting sick of myself.”
Being Naturally Herself: “I just wanted to be very naturally myself and to just engage with people on whatever topics I felt passionate about or whatever I wanted to talk about. And every once in a while, oh, hey, look at this thing I got to be in.”
Author vs. Filmmaker Social Media: Alexander notes book writers and authors are “better at it” than filmmakers. “A lot of people, the film people just don’t post unless they have some film thing to post.” Exceptions include Denise Gossett (Shriekfest) and Alan Spencer (creator of Sledge Hammer! and Bullet in the Face with Eddie Izzard), who “is just freaking hilarious.”
If Warner Brothers Called…
Hypothetical Scenario: If offered 12 weeks to adapt the novel back to screenplay, Alexander would NOT show them the original script.
The Strategy:
- Keep the bones of the current-day story from the original screenplay
- Keep major beats, adding Dr. Sark material
- Pitch the historical fantasy middle section as a separate special release – a second feature or mini-feature available online
Making It Work: There would be “hints” of the backstory in the main film – some high-level dialogue, or tell it “in some kind of impressionistic way. Like in Bram Stoker’s Dracula, it was all done with silhouettes and red and black.” Either very condensed/impressionistic or blown out as a separate purchasable experience (or 20-minute Blu-ray extra).
Why Not Say No: “It’s money… if they see it, they might get interested in the book if they hear the book is a lot better… even if somebody does a bad job of it… people always hear, oh, the book is better. So they go and they read the book.” Quoting J.K. Rowling: “Good books always survive bad movies.”
Technology Opens Possibilities: Like the Wachowskis adapting Cloud Atlas (much harder to follow than Mr. Wicker), or Alexander’s vision for Mrs. Winchester (house constantly changing via CG, build only key set rooms), modern technology “has really opened things up for us, allowing us to tell stories that we couldn’t tell before.”
The Book’s Premise and Details
The Pitch: “Alicia Baum is missing a deadly childhood memory. And the memory is located in this place beyond death called the Library of Lost Childhood Memories. And the person who is the gatekeeper of this place is the librarian, Mr. Wicker. But he is a sort of sinister and seductive creature who has an agenda that’s more deadly than the memory itself.”
The Name Question: Charles asks what happens if someone changes their name – do the books in the library change? Alexander: “I believe it’s the name that was their original name… their birth name. Or the name that they had at the time of surrendering the memory.” She notes the place has “an internal logic” and feels so real that questions “just come right off the top of my head.”
Charles’s Theory: “Don’t you ever wonder if maybe some of the more resonant stories resonate because they are real? And there’s some kind of just adjacent reality that certain people, creative types have the ability to channel?”
- Frank Baum Connection: Alicia is “great niece twice removed” of L. Frank Baum. Originally meant as a wink in the short story (she doesn’t go to Oz, this is much darker), it evolved into exploring “writing and legacies” though Alexander deliberately doesn’t get deeply into Alicia’s writer background in the book itself (saving that for blog posts).
The Midpoint Switch: Charles felt “a switch got flipped at the midpoint” – not only did the flashback material open up a new world, but Alexander’s writing “got a little more whimsical from that point on… the booster rocket kicked in.” This was intentional – Alexander held back the revelation of what sent Alicia over the edge until midpoint, following Charles’s earlier advice to preserve mystery.
The conversation concludes with Alexander thanking Charles, genuine emotion about misgendering Lana Wachowski (expressing love for her trans advocacy work), and Charles recommending listeners purchase the physical hardcopy for its gorgeous cover and beautiful design. The music throughout is by Jill Tracy from the Mr. Wicker book trailer, available at mariaalexander.net along with the puzzle that unlocks the origin story.
- Season Finale: Field Guide to SPIRITED AWAY, GILLIGAN’S ISLAND Real?, BBC Spaghetti Tree Hoax, EXORCIST-CIA Connection, Hollywood Star Secrets, 13 WOMEN - October 28, 2025
- THE EXORCIST: Faith, Fear, and the True Story Behind Hollywood’s Most Haunted Film - October 21, 2025
- THE EXORCISM OF EMILY ROSE and The REAL Possession of Anneliese Michel - October 14, 2025
