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Richard Sanders
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Richard Sanders

Goodreads Author


Born
in Rockville Center, NY, The United States
Website

Twitter
richardsanders

Genre
Mystery & Thrillers, Literature & Fiction

Member Since
April 2011

URL


If I have to describe myself, I’d say I’m a bumbling, half-assed, streetwise mystic looking for meaning in this crazy world. I can also say I worked for 25 years as an Executive Editor at Entertainment Weekly and People magazine. Other highlights on my CV: As a recovering addict and alcoholic, I’ve spent time in jail, rehab and a psych ward, and I’ve managed to stay sane and alive since then. I’ve tried to capture the struggle for spiritual survival, every day, every hour, every moment, in my books.



You can follow me on Facebook
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or Twitter
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Popular Answered Questions

How do you get inspired to write?
Richard Sanders I learned to write overnight. Literally. By the time I was 14, I knew I was a lousy writer and a bored reader and consequently I was carrying a C- ave…moreI learned to write overnight. Literally. By the time I was 14, I knew I was a lousy writer and a bored reader and consequently I was carrying a C- average in English through my freshman high school year. I sucked at the subject and I didn’t care. One day the teacher came in and started passing out books. Sitting in the back (my usual place), I heard the groans as the books were passed back. When I saw the title, Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice, I groaned too. Then we started reading the first act.
I spent a lot of time daydreaming when I was a kid, filming scenes from imaginary movies in my head. One of my favorite scenes involved three men talking on a pier by a lagoon. Which, of course, is the opening scene of The Merchant of Venice. Now I know the similarity was merely coincidental, but at the time it hit me like a lightning strike. The idea that I could have something in common with the world’s greatest writer, that we’d shared the same daydream, stunned the hell out of me. And it shocked me enough to make me actually pay attention to what I was reading.
One of the first things I noticed was the pronounced rhythm and flow of Shakespeare’s language. Which of course is what you get when you’re reading iambic pentameter. But I’d never been conscious of rhythm in any writing before. It made me realize, for the first time, that good writing has a beat to it. It has moves. It’s like music. And I realized too that a rhythmic beat was exactly what was missing from my own flat and plodding C- essays in school.
We had to write an essay on the first act that night. I went home planning to test my musical theory. Of course I really couldn’t use iambic pentameter as a model for prose, so I checked out one of my parents’ old college textbooks on world literature. I found some nice rich tempos in Nietzsche’s Thus Sprach Zarathustra and Baudelaire’s Flowers of Evil. I have no idea what I said about the first act, but by putting some cadence in the words, I got an A+ on the essay. First time in my life. And I got an A in the course—again, first time in my life.
From that night on, I knew I knew how to write. There were many other lessons to learn about writing, sure, but as long as I could think of writing as music, I knew had the basics down.






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Combine Editions

Average rating: 3.56 · 159 ratings · 28 reviews · 22 distinct works • Similar authors
Crystal: A Memory
3.72 avg rating — 68 ratings — 2 editions
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Sex Death Dream Talk
3.13 avg rating — 15 ratings — published 2009 — 3 editions
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Why Die Tomorrow When You C...
2.92 avg rating — 13 ratings — published 2020 — 3 editions
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Dead Line (The Quinn McShan...
3.67 avg rating — 9 ratings — published 2011 — 3 editions
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How To Call Your Dead Mother
liked it 3.00 avg rating — 11 ratings — 2 editions
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Does Death Make My Ass Look...
4.40 avg rating — 5 ratings — published 2014 — 3 editions
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The Lower Manhattan Book of...
really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 5 ratings — published 2010 — 4 editions
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Tell No Lie, We Watched Her...
really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 5 ratings — published 2009 — 4 editions
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Dead Heat
really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 5 ratings — published 2011 — 3 editions
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Dead Time Story
2.86 avg rating — 7 ratings — published 2012 — 2 editions
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Richard Sanders's Blog

The one

The one who supplied me with what I needed in life

Will also give me what I need in death

—Chuang Tzu

How To Call Your Dead Mother
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Richard is Currently Reading

Damascus Station
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bookshelves: currently-reading
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Dec 02, 2025 10:29AM
Spanish Demystified
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Jun 07, 2025 09:07AM
The Civilization ...
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Nov 02, 2013 07:11PM

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Richard Sanders is currently reading
Damascus Station by David McCloskey
Damascus Station
by David McCloskey
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Dec 02, 2025 10:29AM  · 
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Age of Revolutions by Fareed Zakaria
Age of Revolutions: Progress and Backlash from 1600 to the Present
by Fareed Zakaria
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The Fox Wife by Yangsze Choo
The Fox Wife
by Yangsze Choo (Goodreads Author)
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Dec 02, 2025 10:28AM  ·   ·  preview book
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The Fox Wife by Yangsze Choo
The Fox Wife
by Yangsze Choo (Goodreads Author)
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Water Mirror Echo by Jeff Chang
Water Mirror Echo: Bruce Lee and the Making of Asian America
by Jeff Chang (Goodreads Author)
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Dec 02, 2025 10:27AM  ·   ·  preview book
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Tokyo Express by Seichō Matsumoto
Tokyo Express
by Seichō Matsumoto
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Nov 16, 2025 03:57PM  ·   ·  preview book
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1929 by Andrew Ross Sorkin
1929: Inside the Greatest Crash in History--and How It Shattered a Nation
by Andrew Ross Sorkin
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Nov 13, 2025 06:30PM  ·   ·  preview book
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The Eleventh Hour by Salman Rushdie
The Eleventh Hour: A Quintet of Stories
by Salman Rushdie
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Nov 09, 2025 03:35PM  ·   ·  preview book
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How the World Made the West by Josephine Quinn
How the World Made the West: A 4,000 Year History
by Josephine Quinn
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Nov 07, 2025 04:40AM  ·   ·  preview book
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The Eleventh Hour by Salman Rushdie
The Eleventh Hour: A Quintet of Stories
by Salman Rushdie
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Nov 07, 2025 04:38AM  ·   ·  preview book
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Quotes by Richard Sanders  (?)
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“Don't let men get too happy. It would kill me. (581 Ways To Kill Your Boss)”
― Richard Sanders, 581 Ways To Kill Your Boss
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“If I were a man, I’d definitely sleep with myself. In other words, if you tell me to go fuck myself, I take it as a compliment.—581 Ways To Kill Your Boss”
― Richard Sanders
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“People who think their shit is gold suffer unusually high rates of hepatitis B.”
― Richard Sanders, 581 Ways To Kill Your Boss
tags: lies, pride, truth
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Richard’s Quotes

“People who think their shit is gold suffer unusually high rates of hepatitis B.”
― Richard Sanders, 581 Ways To Kill Your Boss
tags: lies, pride, truth
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“If I were a man, I’d definitely sleep with myself. In other words, if you tell me to go fuck myself, I take it as a compliment.—581 Ways To Kill Your Boss”
― Richard Sanders
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“Don't let me get too happy. It would kill me.”
― Richard Sanders, 581 Ways To Kill Your Boss
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Richard’s Groups

44234 Goodreads Self Published Authors — 1399 members — last activity May 25, 2025 09:51AM
A group for authors to help fellow authors in book promotion, review pools, and other things
42697 Kindle Readers and Authors — 367 members — last activity Dec 05, 2025 01:41PM
Discussion forum to bring together readers on Kindle (and other ebook formats) with authors
19126 The Mystery, Crime, and Thriller Group — 31782 members — last activity 37 minutes ago
“It was a dark and stormy night. Lightning flashed and thunder rolled across the sky. Rain spattered a mysterious, hooded stranger who peered over the ...more
7687 Bloggers Unite™ — 1867 members — last activity Dec 18, 2025 09:57PM
For those who blog, love books and love to read them both! Let’s open up the world of blogging and have lots of fun doing it; please join our Group. E ...more
16821 Mystery/Thriller Reading Friends — 6917 members — last activity 7 hours, 30 min ago
This group warmly accepts newcomers. Whereas mystery and thriller is the focus, we also love a great read, regardless of genre. Originally formed from ...more
21928 Dark Fiction — 622 members — last activity Oct 31, 2025 07:41PM
Because we think that a great piece of dark fiction will blow your mind, we are a group for people who enjoy all forms of dark fiction. Lots of discus ...more
142309 Underground Knowledge — A discussion group — 24310 members — last activity Dec 21, 2025 02:42PM
This global discussion group has been designed to encourage debates about important and underreported issues of our era. All you need is an enquiring ...more
29 Mystery Lovers! — 1829 members — last activity Nov 25, 2025 10:02AM
Rain-on-the-windowpanes, chains-in-the-attic, figures struggling on the moor...this group is for fans of mystery! Find a book series, chat over s ...more
220 Goodreads Librarians Group — 304105 members — last activity 0 minutes ago
Goodreads Librarians are volunteers who help ensure the accuracy of information about books and authors in the Goodreads' catalog. The Goodreads Libra ...more
37125 Reading is my escape — 1034 members — last activity Sep 11, 2018 04:51PM
my goal is to get a group of people together who view reading as a HUGE part of their life to chat about books, life, stresses, whatever! Facebook P ...more
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