Rick Riordan was born in San Antonio in 1964.  He graduated from the University of Texas at Austin with a double major in English and History, and received his teaching certification from the U. of Texas at San Antonio in 1988.  He moved to the San Francisco Bay area for graduate work in English and Medieval Literature at San Francisco State University.  When his novels started getting published, Rick left grad school; he returned to San Antonio in 1998.

Rick's second Tres Navarre mystery, THE WIDOWER'S TWO-STEP, received the Edgar Award for best original paperback of 1999, from the Mystery Writers of America.  The third in the series, THE LAST KING OF TEXAS, is due out in Bantam hardcover in January.  Rick's website is http://www.flash.net/~huisache.

Rick graciously granted Sol Magazine this exclusive interview...

SOL:  How did you get started writing short stories?

RICK:  I concentrate mostly on my mystery novels, but like many prose writers I began by dabbling with short stories.  I sent a story to Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine when I was twelve.  My mother still has the rejection letter, now framed.  In college I dabbled in short fiction, but set it aside for along time as I built my career as a middle school English teacher.  My first piece, "A Small Silver Gun", was published in Mary Higgins Clark Mystery Magazine in the Spring of 98.  It was a fun experience trying to encapsulate a compelling mystery in less than twenty pages.  I hope, time allowing, I'll get to try my hand at some more short pieces.

SOL:  What has been your strongest influence as a writer?

RICK:  I love the Southern literary tradition -- O'Connor, Faulkner, Welty.  They taught me about setting and voice and great story-telling.  I'm also a big fan of the hardboiled classics -- Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler.  I frequently reread them to remind myself how spare and clean mystery prose can be. Strangely enough, I am also a big fan of medieval literature, like my character Tres Navarre.  As for more recent  writers, I learn a lot from reading Walter Moseley, James Sallis, and James Lee Burke.

SOL:  What three concrete tips would you offer to aspiring short story writers?

RICK:  First, persevere.  Second, persevere. And third, persevere. Don't give up.  Keep your mail carrier busy with submission.

Write what you must write.  I tell aspiring writers, you have to find what you *must* write, not simply what you think will sell. Your subject matter has to be burning to get out.  Find the subject matter that you *have* to get on paper.  The passion will make all the difference.

For me, that meant getting away from the thing I knew best, San Antonio, for several years before I realized that I wanted to use it as a setting.  Sometimes the old axiom "Write what you know" has to be coupled with "Appreciate what you know."

Aside from that, don't overedit yourself.  Writers all hate what they write the morning after they write it, and they are tempted to tinker with it until it's perfect before moving on in the manuscript.  Don't fall into that trap.  You'll never get past page two.  Force yourself to go on.  When you complete the work, *then* go back and edit.  You'll find that a) the beginning wasn't so bad as you thought with a little distance, or b) you'll have a better idea of how to fix it with the whole course of the story now on paper.