BookWenches

Interviewed by Bobby

Today I have the pleasure to talking with Rick R. Reed. Thanks for taking time from your busy schedule, Rick.

********

How long have you been writing professionally? Is writing a full-time profession, or do you have an evil day job?

No evil day job, although I have had plenty of those in the past, mostly toiling away as an advertising copywriter. Currently, I am fortunate enough to be able to write fiction full time. My first book was published in 1991, so I guess I can lay claim to almost twenty years.


Tell me the story of your first “sale.”

That first book was called Obsessed, and it was the story of a serial killer who believed he was a vampire igniting a reign of terror in Chicago. I was very lucky that the book was chosen to be one of the first in a new, high-concept horror line from Dell called Abyss. The book did well, selling close to 50,000 copies and selling in translation in Germany and Russia.

What kind of work schedule do you set yourself? Do you take time every day to write, or is your style more “when the muse hits”?


I set a goal for myself of 1,000 words per day when I am working on a project. It's realistic, usually attainable, and adds up faster than you might imagine. I do write every day and do not believe in sitting around, waiting for the muse. I'm not that patient.

You recently won an Eppie award for your novel Orientation. Because I’m woefully ignorant, I don’t know much about this award and what it entails. Can you fill me in?

The EPPIE awards are given annually to honor outstanding achievements in electronic publishing. My book won the award for Best GLBT novel of the year (Orientation was published simultaneously in print and e-book formats). I was really surprised when I won the award because the book is not your typical GLBT title: it’s about reincarnation, the AIDS crisis, and the strange love story of a gay man and lesbian (who may be the reincarnation of the gay man’s AIDS-felled lover). It meant a lot to me because the book does not fit into easy genre categories and I was grateful the judges responded so positively to what was, for me, a risky book to write.


I understand that you come from the windy city. What brought you to Seattle? What’s the writing community like here? When the amphibious tour buses rolls past quacking like a duck in downtown Seattle, do you wave to the tourists? Whatever inspires them to go on that tour, anyway? I’ve never been able to figure that one out, myself.

We are still Seattle newbies, just coming up on our one year anniversary here in August. I was in Chicago for most of my adult life and will always love the place. But Seattle is fast becoming home for me and it's definitely a place I can see settling in for good. I actually just began writing something set here, which opens on the Aurora Bridge. We moved here because of my partner's job; he's a national buyer for Nordstrom and they're headquartered here.

You’re well known as a writer of horror, but you write other genres as well. What is your preferred genre and why?

Well, I doubt that I will ever get away from my dark side...and stories of suspense and fear are really compelling for me to write (and read! I think I write the kind of stories I like to read). But I have been dabbling in more romantically inclined stories lately (my new collection, M4M, is a good example which contains the related stories, "VGL Male Seeks Same" and "NEG UB2") and I kind of like exploring the emotions that go into writing stories about love and lust. I'm old enough and jaded enough to finally be able to write sex scenes objectively, without getting too caught up in it! But I think dark suspense, or horror, or however you want to label it, will always be my first love.


So, horror author, what scares you?

Blindness, death of loved ones, rejection, staring at a blank screen and having no inspiration.


I read that you had a similar experience to the incident that Bashed revolves around except that it did not end tragically as it does in the novel. Was writing this story cathartic for you?

I was lucky; I had a close call with some gay bashers that could have turned out a lot differently if not for the almost divine intervention of a Chicago police car cruising by at just the right moment. This episode provided the question all writers of fiction I think ask at the beginning of a project: what if? I asked myself "What if those cops hadn't come by?" and the story began to take shape. Cathartic? I don't know. I certainly felt that there was a message behind the story, one about hate crimes and one about hope.


Yes. I wrote Mark's side of things (the waif) and Sukie wrote Ambrose's. The fun thing about this story is there is a lot of mind-fucking and bitchery going on; this was not created, but was real. It was almost a hateful collaboration because with each new letter (the story is written in letters), we tried to trip each other up and turn the story on its head, which is what I think makes the story fascinating to read. Other than this story, I have not done much collaborative writing and am not sure I'm enough of a team player to do much more. I get so lost in what I do when I write that it's hard to think about trying to do that with someone else.


What inspired you to write A Face Without a Heart as a “remix” of Oscar Wilde’s A Picture of Dorian Grey?

The original story, about a man so in love with himself and his youthful beauty that he would sell his soul to keep it, really spoke to me because it seemed more a parable for our times than it did for Wilde's. Today, we are so obsessed with keeping young, plastic surgery, and so on, that I thought the story really cried out for a more modern-day interpretation. That, and the fact that the gay aspect in Wilde's book is more veiled than I had to be when I wrote my version of the story. I am happy that readers and critics alike viewed the book as a worthy update. It was a tremendous risk to take on such a literary icon like Oscar Wilde and it made me very happy that the book was so well received.


Your novella Dead End Street is a departure from your other work or at least the work that I’m familiar with. What inspired you to write a story for young adults?

The story is a sort of Canterbury Tales for teenagers. Its structure is that each of the five characters in the book tries to top each other with a tale scarier than the last, all told in what might be their small town's most infamous haunted house. And, of course, the old, empty house at the end of the dead end street is less empty than any of the teens in the book imagine. The story had been rattling around in my head for a long time and it was more the ages of the protagonists that made it young adult than any themes or language. I think the book can be an enjoyable read for adults as well.

Do you write with a publisher in mind, or does the process actually work in reverse?

In reverse? Like the publisher writes with me in mind? That would take all the fun out of it. I generally have a good idea of what publisher a work is going to go to before I even begin writing and so I usually know who's going to publish what. I do admit that I can't always be as experimental as I'd like since we do have to keep in mind what will sell and what the market wants.

If you had to choose one story to hold up to the world as your finest work to this point, which would it be and why?

I really do have a fondness for Deadly Vision. It’s the story of a small town lesbian single mother who begins having unwanted psychic visions into the murders of some teenage girls in her town. She wants to help, but no one will believe her. I think this is one of my most suspenseful books. But I also love the fact that, in the end, its true meaning is really about the amazing bond between a mother and child. The book is set, rarely for me, in the Ohio River town in which I grew up and was dedicated to my own mom, who passed away from cancer just three months before the book’s release.


Along with your ten novels, you have written quite a handful of shorter works. What causes you to write a novella as opposed to a full-length novel?

I write a story as long as it has to be to tell it. Sometimes that's 90,000 words, sometimes it's only 5,000. The fortunate thing for me is the rise of e-books, which allows me to publish something much shorter as a freestanding work, whereas I never could back in the days when print was the only way to go. It's been fascinating for me to discover there's a whole new market of ebook readers out there that, until a few years ago, I wasn't really aware of.


What do you do for relaxation, when you just want to take a little “me” time out?

I read. I watch movies. I see plays. Do you detect a trend here? I love stories. When I'm not working on my own, I love to immerse myself in other people's imaginations and fictional worlds. I also do love to get outside, bike and hike, and have found Seattle a great place for that.


What is your favorite Washington destination outside of Seattle? (I’m crazy about this state, personally; it’s like half a dozen states all in one to me.)

I am loving getting to know western Washington and there is still SO much to explore. It's hard to pick one destination as a favorite because I have so many and they are all favorites for different reasons. I love NYC for its energy and vibrancy, London and Rome for their history and truly different, but welcoming, people, and Mexico (Yucatan peninsula) as a great escape.


Can you give us an idea of what you’re working on right now? What can your fans expect from you in the not-too-distant future?

I just finished a new full-length novel called MUTE WITNESS, which will soon be published by MLR Press. It's a very serious book about a small town, a little boy who is abducted and molested, and how small town minds turn to the boy's natural (gay) father as the culprit, when the true villain is much closer to home. I think it's important in that it challenges perception versus reality and takes to task the old homophobic myth about homosexuals liking children. It's also very suspenseful.


If I were to take a peek at your movie and music collections, what artists and titles would I find?

Oh my god. You'd find an eclectic mix. For music, I have a special place in my heart for female vocalists. I love Nina Simone and Bonnie Bramlett. And I tend to like older jazz like Oscar Peterson, Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald... When I'm at the gym, though, I do listen to more high-energy comtemporary dance music. As far as movies, I love horror and suspense, but also good independent films. Two of my top favorites--believe it or not--are The Wizard of Oz and Blue Velvet.


If you could sit down to talk with someone you admire, someone who has inspired you over the years, what question would you ask them? Who would you be talking to, anyway?

I would ask Stephen King to define scary.


Tell us something about yourself that we wouldn’t think to ask.

          Just where people can find me:

          Website: http://www.rickrreed.com

          Blog: http://rickrreedreality.blogspot.com/

          Twitter: http://twitter.com/RickRReed

          Facebook: http://www.facebook.com./rickrreed 

********

Thanks so again for taking the time to talk to us, Rick. We wish you the very best for success in the future. 

If you would like to know more about Rick R. Reed and his work, please visit his website at http://www.rickrreed.com. You can find his books available through MLR Press, Amber Quill Press, and Amazon.com.