An Interview with Christopher Rice
The Reading Cafe is thrilled to welcome Christopher Rice as our guest today. Christopher is here today to discuss his new release, The Heavens Rise, as well as to tell us a little about himself.
Before we begin the interview, lets learn a bit more about Christopher.
By the age of 30, Christopher Rice had published four New York Times bestselling thrillers, received a Lambda Literary Award and been declared one of People Magazine’s Sexiest Men Alive. His latest novel is THE HEAVENS RISE, a supernatural thriller about a young woman who is exposed to a mysterious parasite in the Louisiana swamp that gives her the power to control minds and unleash living nightmares. Together with his best friend, bestselling novelist Eric Shaw Quinn, Christopher recently launched his own Internet radio show. An outrageous and irreverent comedy variety program, THE DINNER PARTY SHOW WITH CHRISTOPHER RICE & ERIC SHAW QUINN streams 24 hours a day, 7 days a week at TheDinnerPartyShow.com, with new live episodes premiering Sunday evenings at 8 PM Eastern, 5 PM Pacific.
Christopher’s first novel, A DENSITY OF SOULS, was published when he was just 22. The controversial bestseller was greeted with a landslide of media attention, much of it due the fact that Rice’s mother is a legendary vampire chronicler who shares his last name. He served as a contributing columnist to The Advocate for many years and his additional criticisms and witticisms have been featured in The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Review of Books, Salon.com and his own Facebook page, which currently hails over 100,000 subscribers. The members of the InsightOut Book Club selected his novel BLIND FALL as one of the best novels of 2008, and his noir thriller LIGHT BEFORE DAY was hailed as a “book of the year” by mega-best selling thriller novelist (and Jack Reacher creator), Lee Child. His short fiction has been featured in the anthologies Thriller and Los Angeles Noir. He recently served on the board of directorsof the West Hollywood Library Fund, which was instrumental in securing private funds to build a brand new state-of-the-art library in the heart of the city he now calls home.
Let’s meet Christopher!
Hi Christopher. Thank you for taking the time to visit us at The Reading Cafe, to discuss your new release “The Heavens Rise”, as well as to give us an update as to what else you may be working on.
TRC: Will you please tell us about yourself?
Christopher: Well, I’m averaging only a few hours of sleep a night. I’ve spent most of the last week on trains and planes. And I couldn’t be more excited about all of it because it means I’m on a book tour. I’m also tall, and I drink too much caffeine, but I quit smoking years ago so I consider it a trade off.
TRC: “The Heavens Rise” was just released a few days ago. Can you please give us a brief description of the premise of this book?
Christopher: “The Heavens Rise” is a supernatural thriller about a young woman who is exposed to a mysterious parasite in the Louisiana swamp that gives her the power to control minds. Unfortunately, someone else is exposed to this parasite as well – a young man she snuck out to her parent’s property with in hopes of having a clandestine romantic evening, only to discover that he was a cold-blooded psychopath.
Links to order The Heavens Rise: Amazon / Barnes & Noble / Kobo / Goodreads
TRC: Is “The Heavens Rise” a standalone novel, or will this be a series?
Christopher: As of now, it’s a standalone novel, but I have hope that it could become a series.
TRC: What have been some of the challenges or difficulties with research etc, as it pertains to “The Heavens Rise”?
Christopher: The main challenge was working with a supernatural framework for the first time. I can’t stand stories in which it feels like the writer is just pulling the mythology out of their hat as they go along. It was important for me to craft a set of supernatural rules that hung together by its own internal logic. The science is made up, of course – a parasite that infects the brain and allows you to metabolize the invisible light waves of someone else’s soul, thereby controlling their body and actions for a period of time – but it’s made up in such a way as to feel like part of an alternative reality, not just a series of shocks administered to the reality in which we all already live.
TRC: With famous parents…Poet/Painter Stan Rice, and super star Author Anne Rice; can you tell us how this influenced you in your writing career?
Christopher: They encouraged me at every turn, and of course, they saw writing as a valid, natural and perfectly noble pursuit. They were shocked when I decided not to be an actor and took up writing instead, but when I told them I was working on a novel, they began leaving copies of some of their favorite works of literature in my bedroom.
TRC: “The Heavens Rise” is a different genre then you usually write, Supernatural. Do you have a preference as to genres, or have you thought about other genres that interest you?
Christopher: I’ve been wanting to write a supernatural novel for a long time. I grew up on this big juicy supernatural thrillers and horror novels that filled the racks at the bookstore in the 80’s and 90’s. Robert MacCammon, Stephen King, Dean Koontz and yes, my mother. For years, I’d struggled with a concept for something supernatural and I usually ended up running into a brick wall. Ultimately, it was a set of characters that guided me into my first supernatural story. In outlining the character of Nikki Delongpre, my instincts kept telling me she was mysterious, that she’d gone missing and her disappearance had leveled her boyfriend and her best friend emotionally, but I wasn’t quite sure why. Then one day, it clicked: she had a supernatural ability – mind control – and she’d gone into hiding out of fear that she’d abuse her gift on the people she loved the most.
TRC: Can you please tell us what are you currently working on?
Christopher: I’m 1/3 of the way through another supernatural thriller set in the deep South. I can’t share much about the plot, except to say I wouldn’t read it in a greenhouse.
TRC: What is your writing process? Do you like to write at specific times, in a special place?
Christopher: I try to write first thing. I try to hit a word count of around 1,500 words a day. I don’t write every day. I’m often working on a mix of projects, rather than just one novel. Thanks to my beautiful MacBook Air, I’ve divorced myself from my desk and I make an effort to get comfortable when I write.
TRC: You are a co-host on a live weekly broadcast called “The Dinner Party Show”. Can you tell us about this show, how can people find it, and how did you come up with the idea of this type of show?
Christopher: My best friend, best-selling novelist Eric Shaw Quinn and I teamed up a few years ago to launch this show and we’re having the time of our lives. We debut a live show Sunday evenings at 8 PM ET/ 5 PM PT at TheDinnerPartyShow.com. Folks can listen free through the player on our site or download our free mobile app. (Also, all of our old shows are available as free podcasts in our Show Archive.) It’s a blend of satire, humor, politics and celebrity interviews, and we like to make guests feel like they’ve attended a lovely dinner party with two outrageous loudmouths. We’re always repeating the most recent episodes on our player so you can’t miss us. We’re also available on Stitcher and TuneIn. And it’s all free!
TRC: Would you like to add anything else?
Christopher: I think we covered everything. Thank you!
Thank you, Christopher for answering our questions. The Reading Café wishes you
the best of luck with “The Heavens Rise”.
To learn more about Christopher, you can find him at the following links:
Website:
Twitter:
Facebook:
Goodreads:
The Dinner Party Show:
