God bless people who scan old newspapers to the Internet. Telfer: I did a lot of the research online. Rumpus: Some of the stories in this book are very obscure did you have to travel for the research? Rumpus: So you were contacted by editors and got an agent and the rest is history? Pretty quickly it was like, “Oh I think I should probably try to focus on this book thing and not do the column anymore even though the column is really fun and good publicity.” It’s so much work because each one is so much research. It was a very short lived column because I started getting interests from editors right away which was just so crazy. Telfer: Yes, Emma Carmichael was hired by Jezebel and she took the column with her. So the first column was 5,000 words long and I was like, “I guess I’m just doing this for free.” Then a couple months later I got a check. I thought I wasn’t getting paid from them at all. Interesting tidbit: I was starting out, so I didn’t even get a contract. I read the comments for the first and only time in my life because I realized just even if the readers had little corrections, they were constructive and it was wonderful.

Telfer: It was just so fun to have my column on The Hairpin. And in 2014 they had Jia Tolentino, Emma Carmichael, Mallory Ortberg, and Nicole Cliffe, and their comments section was so amazing. Rumpus: They pink ghettoized your pitch! But The Hairpin was and is such a great site. So, they said, “We like this, but it would be better for The Hairpin.” Which is sort of hilarious that they were like, “This is about women.” That sounds fun.” I just thought about what sounded fun to write about and serial killers popped into my head. So, when I saw that The Awl had a call out for historical essays. Carrie Bradshaw taught us that valuable lesson: We can live off one column, once a month. In my mind, what I wanted was a column that was when you know you’ve made it. That was really thrilling after the world of literary fiction. They wouldn’t pay you very much, but they would pay you. I had left my MFA program and I was discovering this world where people would pay you to write. Basically what happened was, I was just starting out as a freelance writer. Tori Telfer: My book began as a column for The Hairpin in 2014. The Rumpus: I understand your book had an interesting genesis. I spoke with Telfer over the phone about the origin story for her book, the art of the murder hustle, and the reason more women don’t murder. The writing is fast-paced, often funny, and never flippant.

It’s a daunting task, but the book belies none of these labors. The book, investigates not whodunnit, but rather who is she? Each chapter attempts to strip the sexism, racism, fetishism, and all the isms off of these deeply troubled and problematic women and their crimes and tries to see them for who they are. In her first book, Lady Killers, Tori Telfer tells the true stories of unknown female serial killers.

Lady killers telfer