Rick is a blue-eyed once blond of English-German-Irish descent. He grew up in a chaotic household with six siblings in Iowa City, Iowa. He is genial by nature, likes people, likes to know who they are and what they think but has a touch of the skeptic and brief bouts of cynicism, especially about politics.
He was an indifferent student at the U of I preferring to play poker, drink, play golf and raquetball. After a stint in the Army in Germany during the Vietnam War, he became more focused, went to graduate school, studied English history, got an MA, and was accepted into the PhD program.
After realizing how few positions there were for history PhDs, he left graduate school and decided it was time to explore life beyond the limits of Iowa. He bought an aged Spitfire, hit Route 66, and ended up in San Francisco. In San Francisco he lived in the post-hippy Haight, worked a half-time job and convinced himself he could write. He labored over an unfinished MS which he found later to be didactic and boring. One night while talking to a friend in Spec’s, his favorite North Beach bar, he learned he could use the GI Bill overseas and quickly persuaded a friend who knew French to apply to the Sorbonne for him. He lived in Paris for five years and became fluent in French, picked up a degree in linguistics from the Sorbonne, and taught ESL to make money. And, of course, he continued to struggle with his writing.
After five years and no readable MS, he left for New York City. He’d always liked the electric feel of the city and with little money lived in an SRO (Single Room Occupancy) hotel in Kip’s Bay, a rapidly gentrifying district. Many of the SRO tenants worked but most of the long-term tenants were retired, on SSI, or welfare. He admired their humor and grit and the way they managed to live in a district they no longer recognized. His writing had it’s first real subject. His first novel, The Rex, and Rex Stories draws on his experience living in the hotel.
For the last twenty years or so he’s lived and worked in San Francisco. He worked for tech and media companies as a writer and has written five books of fiction. Right now, he lives with his long-term delightful partner Sally, another writer. In addition to enjoying the weather and culture in San Francisco he writes fiction, hikes, watches birds, and leads tours at the incomparable San Francisco Botanical Gardens.Contact: ricklawton66@gmail.com
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