ABOUT RIC

I grew up reading. In the little town outside of Flint, Michigan, where my sisters and I were raised on twenty, bleak acres, where there were no boys my age to play with, and where, anyway, the land was so inescapably flat and boring that I had learned all there was of interest about the old home acre by the time I was five or six, there was simply nothing better to do with my time. I read, but I didn’t learn to distinguish between good and bad material until well after I’d escaped the confines of that small town, and the equally small minds that governed our poor excuse for a public education system. Of course, there were those lights, here and there, teachers and writers, that allowed me to grasp an idea of something greater, but I had no idea, really, what that could be. So I read, and I still read, everything, good and bad. The difference is, to some degree, I’ve learned to tell the difference and to understand how each author, deliberately or unfortunately, achieves what they do.

There are more books being printed now than ever before. And there are fewer readers (and far fewer diligent readers) and many more distractions for those who are inclined to read. So be it. An author must be simply that much more committed to their craft. Graham Greene - who I know of because I was early on in love with the work of John Irving, and so who related to me the fact of Mr. Greene in his memoir Saving Piggy Sneed - is one of my favorite writers of what he called entertainments. He is at once literary and sparse, more poetic than Hemingway (who I read and love also) and with a sense of cinematic structure as well polished as any of the classic noir stylists. So I turn to Greene, again and again, to find inspiration and guidance. At heart that is what I aspire to be - a writer of entertainments, suitable for conversion into film. Anyone who doesn’t understand that, today, movies are where people turn for diversion, who rails for the return of the days of the immense novel and novelist, is engaged in a Sisyphean task. It ain’t gonna happen.

On these pages, you can experience for yourself a little of what I’m interested in writing; and you may judge for yourself to what degree I succeed. And, as you’ll note under the tab Collaboration, I am open to working with other writers and film-makers on their projects. Film is collaborative; it is almost impossible to make a movie singlehandedly. As a novelist in the twenty-first century, it’s time to come to terms with that. So call me, if you’re in town and I’m interested, I may even buy you lunch.

When you get down to it, what excites me most is the idea of story. How, out of the finite number of plot lines and narrative hooks, a writer manages to tell his story in a way that is at once unique and compelling. In a style that makes those readers who are left out there very glad that they are still in the habit of reading. It’s not an easy task, but it’s immensely pleasurable when someone pulls it off successfully. Because whether you subscribe to the power of Joseph Campbell’s myths, Jung’s hidden symbolism, or the straightforward, hardboiled prose of Elmore Leonard, at the end of the day it’s all about the story.

HOW TO CONTACT RIC

Online Form - go

E-mail:
rghess@rghess.com

Snail Mail:
Ric Hess
3258 N. Sheffield Avenue
Chicago, Illinios 60657

Telephone and Fax:
(773) 248-9181
(773) 248-9182 FAX