The purpose of this monthly series is to highlight an outstanding contributor to the site as chosen by the editorial staff. This designation is meant to recognize and celebrate the best of the best, those writers who not only shine by virtue of their talent, but whose ongoing participation gives all of us a reason to tune in each and every day. As new readers are continually discovering Blogcritics, we also hope to introduce these fine writers to a new audience.

Please join me in a virtual round of applause for this month’s honoree, Richard Marcus!

We first encountered him here in June of 2005, a writer who called himself Gypsyman and whose work was remarkable for its breadth, its honesty, and its prolific nature. Some 357 articles later, Gypsyman unmasked himself and we met Richard Marcus, a self-described “long-haired Canadian iconoclast who writes, reviews, and opines on the world as he sees it.”

In the past eighteen months, Richard has graced these pages with an impressive 655 articles (as of this writing). To attempt to pigeon-hole him is futile. Is he a music writer? Yes, certainly, and a book reviewer as well. A politics writer? A prolific one, to be sure. An observer of contemporary culture? That sounds like him, too.

In short, Richard’s contributions to BC have spanned the site and are remarkable not only for their breadth, but for the attention to detail that his work evidences. Not content to merely tell you whether a book or a recording is worth your time, Richard will tell you everything you need to know about the artist and the genre in which he or she creates. Haven’t paid too much attention to Canadian politics? You’ll know more than you ever thought possible after you’ve read a few of the articles in his series. While his writing is impossible to categorize, it is always characterized by Richard's passion - for his work and his subject matter - and his personal integrity.

Honesty and unflinching self-examination are also qualities that can be found in Richard’s writings. It’s impossible to have read his work here and not feel as though you know the man, sight unseen. Music Editor Connie Phillips, whose section is a frequent home to Richard’s work, says, “Richard Marcus brings passion to his writing. Whether his topic of choice is politics, his NaNoWriMo attempts, or his reviews for the music section, he writes from his heart and draws his reader in.” And it’s that personal connection that keeps us reading.

BC publisher Eric Olsen sums Richard up perfectly when he says, “No one writes with more of himself than Richard Marcus: his sensitivity, generosity of spirit, insight, and personal honesty are unprecedented. Blogcritics would be a very different and lesser place without him.”

Before we get to the interview, a bit of background on Richard, in his own words:

I was born in a one-room log cabin with an igloo outhouse. Oh, alright… I was born in Ottawa, Canada sometime in the previous century when a Kennedy was President of the United States. My father worked in the Justice Department of the Federal Government and we moved between Toronto and Ottawa twice before I was twelve. He switched to corporate law when I was fifteen and we moved backed to Toronto where I lived until 1990.

I studied theatre in University and worked in theatre as an actor/director/producer and technical director from 1982 until ’92, by which time I'd had enough. I had started writing during my time in theatre and had one script produced, an adaptation of Dalton Trumbo's book Johnny Got His Gun, which I wrote while watching the first Gulf War on CNN. Instead of music I used news items from the broadcast as transitions between scenes.

I moved to Kingston, Ontario in 1990, which is where I currently live with my musician wife and our four cats. I turned my energies towards writing in the early nineties with poetry and the occasional short story. Currently I'm on a provincial government disability pension and write whenever and whatever I can. My first novel, The Paths Life Takes, is sitting in the offices of Penguin India awaiting a decision, and I have self-published two collections of articles that I've culled from my work at Blogcritics: NaNoWriMo Notes - An Exercise in Creative Insanity and Voices of Creation: The Blogcritics Interviews. The former is from the series of the same name at Blogcritics, while the latter consists of the interviews I've conducted over the past year accompanied by reviews of each of the subject’s works.