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Speaker 1: Hello and good morning.

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Speaker 2: Good morning, this is Rick Squiat calling.

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Speaker 1: How are you doing today?

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Speaker 2: Rick? Good How are you?

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Speaker 1: Absolutely fantastic and very excited to share a conversation with

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you because I love the way you write. How did

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you learn how to paint mental pictures like this?

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Speaker 2: Well, a lot of practice over a lot of years,

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a lot of reading, a lot of listening.

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Speaker 1: Well, I'm glad you said reading, because that's one of

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the things that when I sit down with the students

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and stuff at these schools and they go, I don't

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like your read I say, you have no idea where

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that reading is going to take you. Well I don't

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like it, Well, learn to like it so you can

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grow is How did you start out as a student.

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Speaker 2: Well, I started out hating school as it goes, but

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I always had a facility with language, and I always

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read a lot. My father was a reader, so I

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was always interested in books. And out of college I

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got a job as a newspaper reporter and started writing

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then and have been making my way in life as

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a writer ever since.

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Speaker 1: How did this book come to you? Because you know,

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my last book came to me when I was walking

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through a mall. I was like, oh, my God, of

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all places to receive a book, Where did you receive

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this story?

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Speaker 2: Well, I always as fascinated as a child with the

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stories my parents and grandparents would tell me about the past,

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and particularly about Prohibition. They was some family history involvement

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in that, and my father saw his neighbor gun down

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in a game lang killing. This is in North Saint Louis.

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And also my grandfather, his father, my immigrant Polish grandfather,

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was storying the barrels of whiskey in their flat in

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their tenement until his wife, who was afraid of being deported,

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started sleeping on the sofas, so he got rid of

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the whiskey. My mother also labeled the baptub gin bottles

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for her neighbors a little girl, so I was interested

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in that, and also in the following years of the

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Great Depression also World War Two, and heard all these stories.

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So this book's sprang from that desire to revisit that

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time and spend some time there with some of the

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characters that are familiar with.

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Speaker 1: What I love about this book is the fact that

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you take a piece of our past and you make

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it so modern, you make it like it's happening right now,

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or at least that's where you planted my imagination.

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Speaker 2: Well, a lot of the things that people experience their

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people still experience today, love and death and trying to

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deal with the outside world, in this case military conscription

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and going off to find a war, having to deal

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with adversity. We all share these common things and are

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collected unconscious and that's where a writer goes to the

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stuff that we all feel and know. And that's what

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you write about, stuff that really moves you. And I

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feel if it moves me, it's going to move other people.

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Speaker 1: Are you like a songwriter and it came to you

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in pieces parts? Or did this all just fall into

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place from beginning all the way to the end.

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Speaker 2: Oh no, very messy process and lots of drafts. I

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couldn't count them. And good writing as always rewriting, so

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and I do. And thank thanks for computers. That makes

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rewriting a lot easier than it was in the days

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of typewriters, where I started out as a newspaper reporter,

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where you had to put another piece of paper in

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and do it again.

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Speaker 1: Wow wow, Because with my writing, when I do the

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computer and I have to go in there and I

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have to do an edit. I'll sit there and I'll

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completely save it into a different file. In other words,

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it's so I can have the original and the changes

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and the chain and the changes, because sometimes you just

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got to pull back, you know, pull things back in sure.

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Speaker 2: And also you don't want to throw away good stuff,

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you know, and and you want to throw away the

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bad stuff and the and the overriding and the self

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adults and stuff. Of course, but you wanted Chris, and

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you wanted honest and being honest with yourself. I find

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it's one of the toughest things this a writer. You

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can't fall in love with your own words.

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Speaker 1: Please do not move. There's more with Rick Squiyot coming

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up next. The name of the book, The Bootlegger's Bride,

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it's from Rick Squewat. Let's get back to that conversation.

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How difficult was it to step back into the Great

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Depression because you know those silent times, you know people look,

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you know, my father would never talk about it, although

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he did live in it, and so did my mother.

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And it's like it's one of those things, is that

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you know, and now you're bringing this forward.

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Speaker 2: Yes, my father did talk about it, my mother too,

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because they both were you know, this is a story

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about working class people. And in those days, my father

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would go down to the Hooverville on the Saint Louis waterfront,

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and this was the largest encampment of homeless people during

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the United States during the depression. There's only over five

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thousand people living there in shanty on the waterfront. And

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he would go there and visit with him and talk

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with him. So, yeah, there was real deprivation around town,

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people out of work, and so I always heard a

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lot of stories about how tough those times were.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, my mom would say that. I mean, she'd say,

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you have no idea how dark the times were. And

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I sat there and said, I would like to know.

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I really would, And so I rely on books like

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this to give me at least that perception of what

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it was like.

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Speaker 2: Well, this is historic historical novel. And one of the

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things about writing this sort of book is that it's

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not a history book, because history books usually deal with

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big events and big people and what and this is

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a history of people who are unhistory generally, So you

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get to see what day to day life is like,

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and what they ate and what they drank, how much

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things cost, what was in style, what was prohibited, the

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way they talked to one another, the way they interacted.

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You don't get that sort of a close and personal

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field for historical moment when you're reading history books.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, in building the characters inside this book, is it

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based on people that you know? Or is it like

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a dream? We really don't see people in our dreams.

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It's just people we pass by on the street.

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Speaker 2: Well, it's a bit of dreaming and imagination, but it's

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also people I've known. My father plays a role as

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a parish part of the part of the character and here.

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But they're all composites. It's people we know and people

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you've known in books and read about or seen in

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the movies. Are other experiences you have personally and things

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you dream about. Things this come out of out of

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your your your unconscious I know when I some of

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my best writings done in the morning, I like to

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get up and work first thing, because that's when I'm

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coming out of my sleep and my subconscious mind is

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really alive at that time.

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Speaker 1: Absolutely, I totally get that, because I can't do anything

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until the writing is done in the morning. Then we

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can go about this day.

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Speaker 2: Absolutely, and then the afternoon I can do rewriting where

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I have more of an analytical, sober, analytical frame of mind.

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Speaker 1: See, I always call those wine glass moments where you

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can go in there with even kool aid and sit

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there and say, Okay, we're gonna sit back, we're gonna

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we're gonna do some editing right now, and we're going

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to get away with it.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. One of the when I used to teach creative

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writing in the university, I would tell my students that

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one of the things I always try to do when

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I have a draft or a book or a short

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story that I really love is I try to wait

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till someday when I'm really maybe terribly hung over, not

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feeling very well, and read it again. There's nothing like

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having a hangover. Let's just say the truth about your writing.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, but you know I love that idea and the

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reason why it's like radio. You've got to put yourself

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in the position of where your listener is when they're

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picking up on it. So therefore you're writing. I mean,

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how many people during a hangover, are not feeling well,

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are sitting there saying I need it up, and so

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they grab your book. So you're putting yourself right there

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where that reader is.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, but as you know as a writer that

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it's just it's a very convoluted, very demanding, and very

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very sloppy thing to try to put a book together.

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Speaker 1: In your heart. Who is Hazel Robinson?

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Speaker 2: You know, they're a bit of my ex wife in there,

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who was a bookish woman, and other women that I've

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read about and known, but no one quite as let's say,

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dreamy is this woman? Yeah, because she's a very much

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a romance and so this, like all my characters, she's

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a composite of all women and men that I've known,

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their aspects of that and they're dreaming men around too

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that she received embodies that, and so.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, a murder mystery. Plus it's also a coming of

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age tail. How did you find balance in that? Because

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I mean, I mean so much focus would be like

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me as a reader going oh, who did it? Who

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did it? Who did it? And then it's like, oh

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wait a second, this this guy's changing.

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Speaker 2: Well, it's interesting that with that way how it came

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about because I started out and started out with it

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with one concept and then it more often something else.

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And so in this case, the actual protagonist of the book,

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AJ is a young man who loses his parents his

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father in World War Two in the D Day invasion

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of his mother, who later commits suicide to protect his

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legacy from a from a blackmailer, and so it becomes

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his book. And I got interested in that into the

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life of orphans and did a lot of research on

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opens and found some surprising things. But it was it

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really grew in a much different direction than I originally

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envisioned it.

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Speaker 1: That's the fun of writing. I think our second grade

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teacher said that just go do it, Go have fun,

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go build a world.

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Speaker 2: Well, it's the greatest pleasure that I have had in

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my life is doing my writing for myself, for my books.

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It's also the most painful thing at times because it's.

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Speaker 1: So where can people go to find out more about you, Rick,

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because I want them to jump into the storyline and

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create the conversation.

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Speaker 2: Well, you can find out about me at my website

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rixsquiat dot com and all my books are linked there

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and listed, so you can usually find him and order them.

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And by the way, my name is still the sk

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w i OHD. So it's Rick Schlee. It's a it's

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a strange name.

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Speaker 1: I love it. Hey look at my name Arrow. That

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who names a kid Arrow? Yeah, you got to come

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back to this show anytime in the future. Rick, The

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door is always going to be open for you.

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Speaker 2: Well, thank you, ro I appreciate it. Enjoy chatting with you.

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Speaker 1: Will you be brilliant today?

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Speaker 2: Okay, all right, thanks