Author Interview: Rich Marcello

The Beauty of the Fall takes Readers on Intriguing Journey

In Rich Marcello’s new novel, The Beauty of the Fall, Dan Underlight, a divorced, workaholic technology executive, suffers lingering grief over the death of his ten-year- old son, Zack. When Dan’s longtime friend and boss fires Dan from RadioRadio, the company that he helped create, he crashes and isolates himself.

Willow, a poet and domestic violence survivor and advocate, helps Dan regain his footing. With her support, Dan ventures on a pilgrimage of sorts, visiting Fortune 500 companies to flesh out a software start-up idea.

When Dan returns home with a fully formed vision, he recruits the help of three former RadioRadio colleagues and starts Conversationworks, a company he believes will be at the vanguard of social change. Guided by Dan’s generative leadership, Conversationworks enjoys some early successes, but its existence is soon threatened on multiple fronts. Will Dan survive the ensuing corporate battles and realize the potential of his company? Or will he be defeated by his enemies and consumed by his grief?

This captivating, idea-driven novel appeals to readers who are interested in exploring a technology based solution to many of our current social problems, and to readers who are interested in father-son relationships, gender equality, and working through grief.

Rich is a poet, a songwriter and musician, a creative writing teacher, and the author of three novels, The Color of Home, The Big Wide Calm, and The Beauty of the Fall.

As anyone who has read Rich’s work can tell you, his books deal with life’s big questions: love, loss, creativity, community, aging, self-discovery. His novels are rich with characters and ideas, crafted by a natural storyteller, with the eye and the ear of a poet.

For Rich, writing and art making is about connection, or as he says, about making a difference to a least one other person in the world, something he has clearly achieved many times over, both as an artist and a teacher.

Rich allowed me to have the opportunity to interview him. Here is how it went. :)

1. What is the first book that made you cry?

Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison.

2. Does writing energize or exhaust you?

I write six to seven hours each morning, seven days a week. I love it, so yes, it energizes me like nothing else.

3. Does a big ego help or hurt writers?

I think it hurts. If a writer is interested in literary fiction, as I am, then most of the work is about eliminating your ego and learning how to see the characters you create (and the world) with kindness and compassion. I do think it’s important for a writer to be confident and to strive to master the storytelling arts, but that’s different than ego as far as I’m concerned.

4. Have you ever gotten reader's block?

No. I hope to write about ten novels before I’m done, and for whatever reason, I seem to have an abundance of ideas. Throughout the four novels that I’ve worked on so far, I haven’t been blocked once though I am crossing my fingers as I write this answer.

5. Do you try more to be original or deliver to readers what they want?

I try to be original. I do hope that, in some small way, my work resonates with readers, but that’s not my primary focus. I think the best art comes from a singular vision that ends up connecting with readers because it was so singular and fresh.

6. What other authors are you friends with and how do they help you become a better writer?

In Boston, there’s a large writer’s community, so I know quite a few. I also teach an advanced fiction class at a nearby writer’s collaborative and meet many writers through my classes. In each case, whether I’m teaching or working on a piece with a colleague, I always tend to learn something new. Sometimes it’s about storytelling. Other times it’s about the mechanics of writing a good scene or a paragraph or a sentence. That’s the beauty of this profession––there are infinite possibilities and therefore endless opportunities to learn from others.

7. If you could tell your younger writing self anything, what would it be?

To love all of the work, even the stuff that you throw away, and to forgive yourself when a piece doesn’t work out. No matter the outcome of the effort, it all helps you become a better writer.

8. What was the best money you ever spend as a writer?

I worked with a great teacher and novelist, Mark Spencer, who taught me most of what I know about writing. Without his help, I wouldn’t have put out three novels in six years.

9. Did you base your characters on real people?

No. I tend to create characters from scratch. Because I strive to create emotionally complex characters, I find it’s best for me to create them from scratch and to imagine their whole stories. Different writers have different approaches to character creation, and some do base them on real people, but not me.

10. What does literary success look like to you?

I think if my books make some small difference in a person’s life, then that’s success for me. Maybe it’s an idea in the book or a plot point or a character that stirs a reader. It doesn’t matter––as long as it resonates. Novels, at their best, invokes a dialogue with the reader. In The Beauty of the Fall, which in many is a counter-argument to the era of divisiveness we now live in, I’m hoping to invoke a dialogue about how we might better connect as humans.

11. What's the most difficult thing about writing characters from the opposite sex?

I spent a significant amount of time learning how to write female characters. At first, I wasn’t particularly good at it, but luckily I had a number of women help me over the years, and now I’m to the point where I’m equally comfortable writing male or female characters. I also love the Swedish film director, Ingmar Bergman, who has written some of the strongest female characters of all time. I’ve studied his work extensively, and hopefully, a little bit of his work has rubbed off on me.

12. How many hours a day do you write?

Six to seven hours a day, seven days a week.

13. What did you edit out of this book?

Sometimes I write a scene that doesn’t go anywhere. Most of the time I needed to write it to better understand the character, but once I finished it, I no longer served a purpose in the story. There were a dozen scenes like that in The Beauty of the Fall that I deleted.

14. If you didn't write, what would you do for work?

I’d be a songwriter or a poet. I’ve already written and published many songs and poems, so I would probably just focus there. I also wouldn’t mind playing in the NBA.

15. Share one little known fact about yourself.

I like to dance alone in my writing studio to Morgan Page songs, especially when Lissie is the lead singer.

Cool, right? I love reading what authors have to say in response to my questions.

Advanced Praise

“Few novels are as intelligent and relevant as The Beauty of the Fall. Almost none is as eloquent, compelling, heartbreaking, and ultimately, uplifting.” — Mark Spencer,

Faulkner Award winner and author of Ghostwalking

“Rich Marcello’s The Beauty of the Fall takes the reader on two intriguing journeys: the exciting coffee-fueled rise of a high-tech start-up and the emotional near-collapse of the man behind the revolutionary company, his personal journey through grief and healing.”

––Jessamyn Hope, author of Safekeeping

“Rich Marcello’s third novel, The Beauty of the Fall, intermixes poetry and prose fluidly throughout the manuscript, and in fact, incorporates poetry as one of its major themes. As a practicing poet, I was swept away by the lyrical language, the characters, and the unexpected twists and turns in the plot. Overall, a great and inspiring read!” — Rebecca Givens Rolland, author of The Wreck of Birds

If interested in purchasing your own copy, then click this link: http://amzn.to/2nkyqAX