Eric Rickstad's Blog
December 20, 2024
WHY I WROTE LILITH
LILITH took me a decade to write.
On September 2, 2015, the first day I dropped my daughter off at pre-K, I saw a sign at the school entrance that read: If blue lights are flashing do not approach school. When I tried to open the door, I found it locked. We had to be buzzed in. We live in a small Vermont town. Everyone knows everyone. Why did we need to be buzzed in? Why the menacing sign? Because our kids’ schools have become places of death, and there is an ever-present threat that someone, a man or boy, in our own community will one day walk in and try to shoot out children and teachers. I say boy or man because just one girl has ever been a school shooter in our times. I say someone in our community because no one in say Boston or Albany,, hours away is throwing a dart at a map and saying I think I will go to this small town in Vermont to shoot kids. As I write this for the paperback version of LILITH, we are just one week into the 2024 school year, and just two days removed from more children and teachers being shot to death at school, this time at Apalachee High School in Georgia. A 14 year old boy who got an AR style rifle for Christmas, even after he was visited by the FBI about threats of school violence.
Soon after that first day of Pre-K, I learned my daughter's school practices Lockdowns to prepare for shootings that should never happen. Yet, they happen again and again. The majority of Americans are fed up with the lack of leadership and responsible gun reform while a few extremists prevent that reform. I say this as a gun owner of the past 40 years.
After that first day of pre-k, I began to ask, how did we arrive here? What happened that we must suffer the slaughter of our children as if it is normal? It is not normal. It can never be normal. We can never allow it to become or accept it as normal. I wondered what we have become and what we are becoming. Where does all of this end? Can we ever make our kids, and all of us, safe again? We cannot ever, as a vice presidential candidate said just today, accept it as a "fact of life."
For years, I struggled to handle the subject with the sensitivity, empathy, emotion, and language it demanded while not balking from the violence and its consequences. I wrote LILITH from every POV, tense and person. I set it aside for spells, but the rage, futility and pain I felt every time a shooting occurred pushed me onward.
Finally, I wrote it from where these emotions reside inside me as a parent of two school children. I wrote from the heart of one who sees a tear in our societal fabric, who sees something has gone terribly awry for us. I wrote it as a lifelong gun owner sick and tired of the extremist gun culture setting the agenda. I wrote it as a man who recognizes that something is broken in many, certain men, something that goes back in time with the systems we create, the mythologies of guns and violence we push, the insecurities we hide and let bubble up as anger, and the places from which we draw what we believe is strength. These are ugly places. I wrote it knowing something must happen, something must change. I wrote it as a man who was raised with his three sisters by a single mother, growing up in a home of girls and women b/c I had a cruel, selfish abusive father. I wrote it knowing only a female protagonist could underscore and counter that ugliness. I wrote it to reach those who share my rage and helplessness, to awaken them to what is at stake if we do not act and we do not speak out, to inspire change and to ignite hope.
It was a difficult novel to write, and it is a difficult novel to read. But I am grateful that teachers, superintendents, librarians, mothers, fathers, and booksellers who have read and discussed have responded so positively about how it captures and reflects their own fear, anxiety, helplessness and need of hope they live with daily.
On September 2, 2015, the first day I dropped my daughter off at pre-K, I saw a sign at the school entrance that read: If blue lights are flashing do not approach school. When I tried to open the door, I found it locked. We had to be buzzed in. We live in a small Vermont town. Everyone knows everyone. Why did we need to be buzzed in? Why the menacing sign? Because our kids’ schools have become places of death, and there is an ever-present threat that someone, a man or boy, in our own community will one day walk in and try to shoot out children and teachers. I say boy or man because just one girl has ever been a school shooter in our times. I say someone in our community because no one in say Boston or Albany,, hours away is throwing a dart at a map and saying I think I will go to this small town in Vermont to shoot kids. As I write this for the paperback version of LILITH, we are just one week into the 2024 school year, and just two days removed from more children and teachers being shot to death at school, this time at Apalachee High School in Georgia. A 14 year old boy who got an AR style rifle for Christmas, even after he was visited by the FBI about threats of school violence.
Soon after that first day of Pre-K, I learned my daughter's school practices Lockdowns to prepare for shootings that should never happen. Yet, they happen again and again. The majority of Americans are fed up with the lack of leadership and responsible gun reform while a few extremists prevent that reform. I say this as a gun owner of the past 40 years.
After that first day of pre-k, I began to ask, how did we arrive here? What happened that we must suffer the slaughter of our children as if it is normal? It is not normal. It can never be normal. We can never allow it to become or accept it as normal. I wondered what we have become and what we are becoming. Where does all of this end? Can we ever make our kids, and all of us, safe again? We cannot ever, as a vice presidential candidate said just today, accept it as a "fact of life."
For years, I struggled to handle the subject with the sensitivity, empathy, emotion, and language it demanded while not balking from the violence and its consequences. I wrote LILITH from every POV, tense and person. I set it aside for spells, but the rage, futility and pain I felt every time a shooting occurred pushed me onward.
Finally, I wrote it from where these emotions reside inside me as a parent of two school children. I wrote from the heart of one who sees a tear in our societal fabric, who sees something has gone terribly awry for us. I wrote it as a lifelong gun owner sick and tired of the extremist gun culture setting the agenda. I wrote it as a man who recognizes that something is broken in many, certain men, something that goes back in time with the systems we create, the mythologies of guns and violence we push, the insecurities we hide and let bubble up as anger, and the places from which we draw what we believe is strength. These are ugly places. I wrote it knowing something must happen, something must change. I wrote it as a man who was raised with his three sisters by a single mother, growing up in a home of girls and women b/c I had a cruel, selfish abusive father. I wrote it knowing only a female protagonist could underscore and counter that ugliness. I wrote it to reach those who share my rage and helplessness, to awaken them to what is at stake if we do not act and we do not speak out, to inspire change and to ignite hope.
It was a difficult novel to write, and it is a difficult novel to read. But I am grateful that teachers, superintendents, librarians, mothers, fathers, and booksellers who have read and discussed have responded so positively about how it captures and reflects their own fear, anxiety, helplessness and need of hope they live with daily.
February 12, 2024
NEW NOVEL
Hello Readers and Friends!
My new novel LILITH is due out on March 19!
It took me a decade to write it.
It is my most fearless and powerful novel to date and early readers are loving it, and calling it a book that will talked about all year, and in the years to come.
Please check it out. There is an ARC giveway here on Goodreads and you can pre-order it too.
If you like my books, please consider a pre-order.
http://tinyurl.com/mrx793zn
Many thanks,
Eric
My new novel LILITH is due out on March 19!
It took me a decade to write it.
It is my most fearless and powerful novel to date and early readers are loving it, and calling it a book that will talked about all year, and in the years to come.
Please check it out. There is an ARC giveway here on Goodreads and you can pre-order it too.
If you like my books, please consider a pre-order.
http://tinyurl.com/mrx793zn
Many thanks,
Eric
April 6, 2021
EXCITING BOOK NEWS!
Hello Readers,
It's been a while since I had a book out in the world.
But, boy have I been writing!
I have some VERY EXCITING NEWS TO SHARE, VERY SOON!
Thanks as always for reading!
Eric
It's been a while since I had a book out in the world.
But, boy have I been writing!
I have some VERY EXCITING NEWS TO SHARE, VERY SOON!
Thanks as always for reading!
Eric
March 22, 2017
NEW BOOK, 9/12/17
Eric RickstadThe Names of Dead GirlsDear Readers,
THE NAMES OF DEAD GIRLS, the latest novel in my Canaan Crime Series with Frank Rath and Sonja Test hits shelves and virtual shelves September 12, 2017. Just in time for Halloween season. It picks up where THE SILENT GIRLS left off and, if I say so myself, it is one damned creepy, ominous, suspenseful, terrifying page-turner. Edge-of-your-seat, what-was-that-sound?, don't-look-behind-you, keep-the-lights-on-all-night, addictive reading (I write the kind of books I love to read.) If you enjoyed THE SILENT GIRLS and want to know what happens to Rachel Rath and Preacher, you will be ripping through this one. If you haven't read THE SILENT GIRLS, no matter. THE NAMES of DEAD GIRLS is its own delicious, devious, and depraved psychological thriller.
So, keep the lights on, lock the doors. and prepare to be scared. Not that any of those things will do you any good. They won't.
Cheers,
Eric
THE NAMES OF DEAD GIRLS, the latest novel in my Canaan Crime Series with Frank Rath and Sonja Test hits shelves and virtual shelves September 12, 2017. Just in time for Halloween season. It picks up where THE SILENT GIRLS left off and, if I say so myself, it is one damned creepy, ominous, suspenseful, terrifying page-turner. Edge-of-your-seat, what-was-that-sound?, don't-look-behind-you, keep-the-lights-on-all-night, addictive reading (I write the kind of books I love to read.) If you enjoyed THE SILENT GIRLS and want to know what happens to Rachel Rath and Preacher, you will be ripping through this one. If you haven't read THE SILENT GIRLS, no matter. THE NAMES of DEAD GIRLS is its own delicious, devious, and depraved psychological thriller.
So, keep the lights on, lock the doors. and prepare to be scared. Not that any of those things will do you any good. They won't.
Cheers,
Eric
