Ask the Author: Rhonda Riley
Answered Questions (13)
Rhonda Riley
I just finished reading The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker, so that book is on my mind. Good story. Very good writing. I would be a jin. I would fly and sculpt metals with the heat of my hands. New York in 1899 would be pretty cool, too. But only if I were as strong at the golem and could read minds. I have always wanted to fly and understand the minds of others.
Rhonda Riley
No. I don't do horror. Not the genre for me. And I, obviously, can't even say "no" in one sentence. The closest I have ever come to horror was seeing someone who looked like very much like a zombie. I was a fresh volunteer for a hospice organization. He had a kind of cancer that was eating his face. And he had a story he wanted to tell. I looked at his eyes and listened. He told the same story every time I saw him.
Rhonda Riley
My friends. I have a group of women friends who are very good at being happy for me. They encourage me on that most basic level of support. They all have some struggles, illnesses, etc. but they just keep going. They get up each day and get their jobs done. And they cheer me when I do the same. Their support is about who I am and our friendship. But I also take a lot of encouragement from readers and reviewers--like you. It helps to know when I am writing that there are people who read and liked my work, people who will want to read what I am writing now. I cherish that. And, of course, every time I read a good story and beautiful language, I am encouraged and reminded of why I want to write. And, yes, I am continuing to write. Thank you for your encouragement. Keep reading!
Rhonda Riley
Summer never has been a big--or should I say, bigger--time of reading for me. And now that I have no association with academic schedules, my vacation reading might be any time of year. I am a member of a book club and our first read this summer was/is WAVE by Sonali Deraniyagala. An amazing book and good writing, but it is a memoir of grief and loss and might be tough for some who recently suffered a loss or never have. Grief is the major part of this memoir, but in the end what you will know is an extraordinary family. I find a lot of inspiration and solace in books about science and nature. I just finished two books on trees, David George Haskell's THE SONG OF TREES and THE HIDDEN LIFE OF TREES by Peter Wohlleben. Blew my ideas about trees. Haskell is wonderful with descriptions and parts of his book are spiritual in ways that I found very appealing. During a recent party conversation, I got an earful of praise for A CONFEDERACY OF DUNCES by John Kennedy Tool, one that I never read but always planned to read--it is on my summer list. And on vacations, I love to read the annual short story collection titled BEST AMERICAN SHORT STORIES. A new one every year and a new editor. A good way to sample a lot different authors. My research reading now includes COUNTRY DRIVING by Peter Hessler and FACTORY GIRLS by Leslie T. Chang. I CONTAIN MULTITUDES by Ed Yong
Some truly amazing stuff in the multitudes book. Did you know bacteria can exchange genes horizontally, no need for mating, they can just roll up to each other regardless of species and trade genes. Fascinating stuff. There all kinds of critter symbiosis out there and inside us.
Some truly amazing stuff in the multitudes book. Did you know bacteria can exchange genes horizontally, no need for mating, they can just roll up to each other regardless of species and trade genes. Fascinating stuff. There all kinds of critter symbiosis out there and inside us.
Rhonda Riley
Other than the same mystery Evelyn faced about her mother and biological father--yes, that came directly from my own family, the world's oldest and most common family secret/mystery. Aside from that, there have been a couple of novel-worthy mysteries I have encountered. Both involve South Africa apartheid. I volunteered at free medical clinic in California once where there were some pretty radical people working there. I dated one of them and he had some connections to South Africa that he was very secretive about and a few times he thought someone was following us. Later I befriended someone who had just escaped apartheid. He disappeared suddenly, then after a couple years, he called to say he was not doing well, but before he could tell me why, the phone went dead. I never heard from him again. My brother was a mystery to me, too. Ten years older than me, he was a Viet Nam vet. I have lots of questions about what happened to him and how it all affected him.
Rhonda Riley
Hi Lissa,
Thank you for the encouragement!! I very much need it at this time. I hope Adam and Evelyn are still with you... They are very much with me now as I am working on the sequel. I added a little scene of Evelyn's funeral today. The new book starts about 2014 with her death (It is a pretty good, kind death and she is old). I am a slow and easily distracted writer and have had too many medical and family issues lately. Nothing life-threatening, just regular life. But I am sticking to my new year's writing resolutions thus, and letters like yours make that easier for me. Thanks you.
Thank you for the encouragement!! I very much need it at this time. I hope Adam and Evelyn are still with you... They are very much with me now as I am working on the sequel. I added a little scene of Evelyn's funeral today. The new book starts about 2014 with her death (It is a pretty good, kind death and she is old). I am a slow and easily distracted writer and have had too many medical and family issues lately. Nothing life-threatening, just regular life. But I am sticking to my new year's writing resolutions thus, and letters like yours make that easier for me. Thanks you.
Rhonda Riley
Hi Teresa,
Yes, I am working on another book, a sequel to Adam Hope. It will focus mostly on Sarah, the youngest daughter and will take place in India, Burma and China. That means a lot of research for me. I am a slow writer, so it will be a while.
I am glad you liked Adam Hope. Thank you for taking the time to let me know.
Yes, I am working on another book, a sequel to Adam Hope. It will focus mostly on Sarah, the youngest daughter and will take place in India, Burma and China. That means a lot of research for me. I am a slow writer, so it will be a while.
I am glad you liked Adam Hope. Thank you for taking the time to let me know.
Rhonda Riley
I wanted to write about my mother, but I couldn't get it right. I tried telling the truth (nonfiction) but that didn't work and, besides, I really didn't know the truth, not the whole truth. About that time I was sitting outside the library at UF where I worked at the time. My mind wandered as it is inclined to do especially on a lunch break and I got an image of two hands touching in the mud. I did not imagine who they were and I did not have a whole story there at that moment, but I understood that there was a transformation involved in that touch, a transfer of being or energy from one to another. A few years later, my brother died, the last of my biological family. Looking down into his coffin, I understood what time can do to delayed goals. I gave myself permission then to leave the idea of factual truth and try to tell an emotional truth. It felt like a wild deviation from the path I'd been on. So I followed that image of two hands touching.
Rhonda Riley
I read good writing. Fiction, non-fiction, poetry. I look around me. Science and nature writing are good at sparking my imagination. Good language, good writing and interesting new things. Those are the things that make me want to say, to speak, to tell a story. The world is full.
Publishing Adam Hope has made me realize how much of an introvert I am. I do not like being the center of attention. I do not want to be the Artist or the Writer. But I love the creative act, the unpacking of something that was not there before.
Publishing Adam Hope has made me realize how much of an introvert I am. I do not like being the center of attention. I do not want to be the Artist or the Writer. But I love the creative act, the unpacking of something that was not there before.
Rhonda Riley
After the publication of Adam Hope, I started on a completely unrelated work. But then I ran into a snag, some heavy furniture deep in my psyche I wasn't ready to move. I don't mean to be evasive or coy, but that is how it felt. My agent felt I should have something different to show a publisher, in case Adam Hope did not do well enough. I tried, but I couldn't get the unrelated novel right. Then I read something about tigers and remembered where I had left Sarah in southern China. Sarah is in India now, over a thousand mile from her family in China and walking home to them.
Rhonda Riley
Read good books, the kind of books that make you want to write. Try to view your own writing from the point of view of the reader. It is not just about your need to tell the story. Watch out for the how-to-write books. Depending on your own character, they can cause paralysis. There is no golden key, no one (or two rules) that make good writing. Don't try to to put everything you know into what you are writing. Find a writers group if you can. Critiquing other people's work will teach you a lot. Unless your friends and family members are editors or writers don't show them your work in progress. Let them cheer you on, but don't expect unbiased, clear or helpful criticism. Don't put them on the spot. Read and write. When it is time to seek an agent or publisher, do your homework. Play nice with everyone you invite into the process.
Rhonda Riley
Those moments when the writing clicks--those first-draft moments when I get an new idea or an answer, and I know it is working.
A close second would be those times when I hear from a reader about how much she or he loved the story. That still seems magic to me: my story in the head of a stranger far away. My words taken into a new life, a new place.
A close second would be those times when I hear from a reader about how much she or he loved the story. That still seems magic to me: my story in the head of a stranger far away. My words taken into a new life, a new place.
Rhonda Riley
I seek a restrictive physical environment. I rely on the pressure of the herd. The local public library is great for that. They have a quiet room. They allow coffee in that room and snacks. I don't ask for the library's wifi password. I go into that room. It is light, quiet. A true, we-all-glare-at-anyone-who-answers-a-phone quiet. I am surrounded by people reading, writing, and studying. For the first few minutes, I am just mimicking the others. But eventually, I am doing the same. I am researching I am writing. It is both a private and public time. Sometimes, I hear the soft snore of someone sleeping. If the writer's block is really bad, I give myself permission to write anything, just write.
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