Richard Price

nymag.com/…/2008/03/richard_price.html

Listening to Richard Price speak, I could hear a down-to-earth presence about him. The way he spoke made me feel comfortable listening to him. You can see that he is extremely intelligent, but he doesn’t flaunt it in the way he speaks or gets his message across. He doesn’t get too wordy which is something I liked about him. He wasn’t afraid to use foul language in a room full of people. He spoke in the language he knew how and didn’t try to hide it. He speaks using his own voice and doesn’t try to sound different than who he is, which was admirable. To be honest, I expected to hear some big time writer talk about his books in a way I couldn’t comprehend. I thought it would be a bore the whole way through. Instead, he was genuine with his answers and added his own touch of humor which made him fun to listen to. After every question, I was waiting to hear the witty answer he had and a comment to follow it. He sure does know how to keep an audience’s attention.

Aside from the interview itself, you can see how much work he put into his books with all the research and interviews he had to do. Using his own experiences and the collective information of those around him, he creates these real life stories, such as Lush Life. But its his creativity that makes them as famous as they are. You need to have a sense of history, humor, and writing in order to create those types of books. Having those three qualities isn’t an easy thing to have, but Richard Price has it and it shows in the way he speaks and writes.