Rick Hautala - Author, Screenwriter Interviewed
Rick Hautala has more than twenty-five published books, including the million-copy, international best-seller Nightstone, as well as Twilight Time, Little Brothers, Cold Whisper, Impulse, Four Octobers, and The Mountain King. He also has had four books published under the pseudonym A. J. Matthews, including The White Room, Looking Glass, and Follow and Unbroken. Over fifty of his short stories have appeared in national and international anthologies and magazines.
Forthcoming books include The Wildman from Full Moon Press. His new short story collection, Occasional Demons, is due soon from CD Publications. Lovecraft’s Pillow, a short film he co-wrote with Mark Steensland, showed at Cannes Film Festival in the Summer of 2006. Other short films include The Ugly File, based on a short story by Ed Gorman, Peekers, based on the story by Kealan Patrick Burke, and Abed, based on the Beth Massie short story. He just finished the feature film adaptation of James Newman’s Animosity.
A graduate of the University of Maine in Orono with a Master of Art in English Literature, he has three grown sons and lives in southern Maine where he is at work on several book and film projects.
DNW: You’ve been working in and around the writing business for a long time. You have novels, short stories, limited editions, and some screenwriting behind you. Here’s my first question. What is it that keeps you excited and sharp? What is it that you think about when you are probably behind on other deadlines, or daydreaming over a beer? What - currently - is the passion, and why?
RH: What keeps me excited and sharp (as sharp as I can be at my advance age <g>) is the knowledge that I am still learning. Always learning. I love to read and write and read some more. At times, even some of the basics of writing a story—even simple things like word choice and POV seem like a sudden revelation to me, like I’ve never really understood them before. There are always new stories and ideas floating around. Trying to snag them and hone them and develop them is the fun part … the exciting part.
READ THE ENTIRE INTERVIEW HERE!
YOU CAN PRE-ORDER HIS UPCOMING BOOK THE WILDMAN BY CLICKING HERE
