Author Interview – Richard Long

2:30 AM | Labels: Authors

What’s your favorite place in the entire world? New York, New York. The town so nice they named it twice.

How has your upbringing influenced your writing? I write a lot about pain. Redemption. Corruption. Enlightenment. I’ve experienced all that, though I’m hoping to learn a lot more about the last item.

Do you recall how your interest in writing originated? From reading. I was a voracious reader from a very young age. Stories took me away to all these incredible places. I really needed that escape so I holed up in my room for hours at a time, reading everything I could get my hands on.

When and why did you begin writing? I’ve always been a storyteller. When I was younger I thought of myself more as a visual artist, and I drew and painted constantly. But there would always be words. Cartoon speech bubbles. Random thoughts. Narrative.

How long have you been writing? I started writing more seriously in my twenties. Poems. Dialog. Eventually, I dabbled in playwriting and screenwriting. I made a living as an art director and a copywriter in advertising. Then I became a Creative Director. But it wasn’t until I tried the long form that I found my voice. I like to tell looooooong stories.

When did you first know you could be a writer? I always knew I could write clever lines, which is the epitome of creativity in advertising. I had a good ear for dialog as well. So does my son. He writes the most incredible dialog: kids, adults, men, women…he just nails it all perfectly. I was insecure about my narrative writing when I started. I guess I knew I could really write when my narrative didn’t suck.

What inspires you to write and why? My curiosity is unquenchable, so I never run out of things I want to write about. Having a curious mind is the greatest gift any artist can have. Otherwise, you can easily get stuck in your own ego. When you enjoy looking outside yourself, there’s always something interesting to see.

What genre are you most comfortable writing? I write fiction. Though, now that I’ve embraced the sordid world of social networking, I write a lot of blogs and posts and tweets that could be loosely termed non-fiction. In my case, very loosely. With The Book of Paul, I’m writing in a baker’s dozen of fiction genres: horror, occult, dark fantasy, erotica, humor, mystery, thriller, historical fiction, sci-fi, mythology, philosophy, religion. My reviews usually start with: “Wow! That was…different.”