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.
Q&A: The Serious Stuff
Your work spans the entire site in terms of content (I think you have yet to write a gaming article, but everything else has been covered), and has a huge amount of depth. Rarely do I read one of your music reviews, for example, without learning a great deal about either the genre or the artist. Learning any one subject in depth is enough for most writers, but you seem to have all your bases covered, from politics to music. Where does that relentless need to know come from, and how do you go about doing your research?
I hate to admit it, but I actually do very little research, or I should say that what I do is mostly find the articles that will substantiate what I already know. I think a clue to me might be found in the fact that my wife refers to me as her database/encyclopedia.
Article comments
1 - Connie Phillips
Congratulations Richard! Thank you for sharing with us via the interview. Nice write-up as usual, Lisa.
2 - Matthew T. Sussman
Uh oh. Back to back Canucks. We really need to plan this better.
3 - SonnyD
Yea, Richard! Great write-up, great interview.
4 - Vikk Simmons
Congratulations. I really enjoyed reading about you, your writing, and your process Keep up the good work.
5 - Richard Marcus
Holleee
do I really sound like that pompus beady canuck...
Thank you very much Lisa and all you other editor types for the honour. Considering all the folk who write on this site and have quite amazing things to say all the time it's enough to make a fella's head swell.
That is until his next article is put on hold for being sensless gibberish. Oh well that gives me about a day or two to revel in this.
Thank you once again,
cheers
Richard Marcus
6 - Donnie Marler
Richard,
Congratulations! Well deserved!
7 - Pico
You write good stuff. Keep 'um coming, Richard.
-P
8 - Kathy Jones
The interview was wonderful reading and the collection of articles is inspiring. I especially appreciated your comment, Richard, that what you found most difficult is this:"getting the words on the page to be as exciting as they sound in my head." Really resonated with my experience, and your persistence has paid off, as evidenced in the quality of your work. Congrats!
9 - Al Barger
Why, some of my best friends are Canadians...
Look, all decent patriotic Americans naturally hate beady-eyed Canucks with their heads so full of lies. Brother Marcus, however, does not indulge in the head full of lies part. He will tend to make somewhat different value judgments than me in some political areas (ie he tends to be more "liberal"), but he's highly respectful of facts and strives to seek truth rather than simply win arguments.
So then, as Canadians go, Richard Marcus ain't half bad. He's one of the good ones.
10 - STM
"Look, all decent patriotic Americans naturally hate beady-eyed Canucks."
Never got over having your blurters kicked from here to kingdom and back in the War of 1812, eh?
Time to bloody well forget that, Al, old boy, and move on.
11 - Al Barger
STM, keep monkeying with US Americans, and we'll execute Terence and Philip again.
Canadians are already skating on thin ice as it is. If you read the fine print, the Patriot Act actually outlaws Canada. That whole country is just one Celine Dion album away from being the new Iraq.
12 - STM
Mate, I have often heard Canada described as "America's hat".
However, I have a copy of Mercator's correctional map of the world, which since north and south are nothing more than human inventions and no-one really knows what is top and what is bottom, has Australia and New Zealand at the top of the world.
The US of course is then below the equator, with Canada below that. Using this map, it is no longer America's hat, but America's undies.
I'm sure they prefer being the hat.
13 - Elvira Black
Lisa and Richard:
What an incredible piece. Lisa, you somehow encompassed the essence of Richard in your brief intro, including the formidable depth and scope of his work. And Richard, I felt like you were inside my head (or vice versa) as I was reading the interview--and if I read you right, that's one of the essential elements of what every writer strives for. You've got it in spades. Congrats!
14 - Duck
How nice of Canada to allow Indigenous peoples use of their own land. How of them.
Seems racist to me when oil companies can go on Indigenous (Crown? Who wers the crown?) Land. Receive hugh tax breaks and I am sure lax environmental controls. Why can these companies sell or do whatever they want?
15 - STM
Ah, it's good to see that land owned by the Government in Canada is still called Crown Land (just like in Australia).
Much of it wasn't used by indenigenous people in the sense that we understand land ownership anyway. Therein lies the problem. A conundrum now being left to others to sort out, just like in the US, with varying degrees of success. Although mostly not.
16 - crushkill
I really like how he loves talking about himself!
17 - DukeDeMondo
Richard, congratulations Good Sir, and that interview was glorious also. It does the site no end of good to have folks like yourself on here. And what a lovely man, also.
18 - alessandro nicolo
Yeah, like the Inuit were going to extract the oil with their kakivak's. No offense. Congrats, Mr. Marcus. Montreal Canadiens - good man.