Our fearless leader!

I think Randy Richardson has a time machine in his basement. It’s the only explanation I can come up with for how he is able to be a full-time lawyer, husband and father, writer of novels and numerous essays, Cubs fan, and the extremely dedicated president of the Chicago Writers Association. Recently Randy was kind enough to answer some questions about the unique challenges and benefits to being a writer in Chicago . . .

As president of the Chicago Writers Association, I’m sure you’ve thought a lot about how a community of writers can help each other. What do you see as the most important goals for any writers association? Have these goals changed over time?

No one understands writers like other writers. We’ve all felt the sting of rejection. We all know how painful the crippling effects of writer’s block can be. On the flip side, we also know how good it feels when those writing juices flow. And we know the satisfaction that comes when you write something that really sings. Of course the act of writing is an insular one. All of these joys and pains we usually experience alone. I think the primary purpose of a writers association is to have a place where writers can feel comfortable to share all of these ups and downs with others who have experienced the same feelings and emotions.  On the Chicago Writers Association’s website, we state our purpose right up front, and that is to share information, experiences, and encouragement with those of us for whom written expression is an integral part of life. To me, that pretty well sums up the organization’s most important goals, and I would think that would be true for any writers association.

Have these goals changed over time? I don’t really think so, and I don’t think they ever will change because the insular nature of writing is a constant. The tools writers use will continue to change but the actual act of writing hasn’t changed since Shakespeare put ink to paper. As long as that act of writing remains the same there will always be writers searching for a community of like-minded people to share information, experiences and encouragement.

What are the particular challenges for writers living in Chicago? What are the particular benefits?

The most obvious challenge is that Chicago is not New York City or Los Angeles. It’s traditionally been said that if you want to make it as a novelist, you have to live in the Big Apple, and that if you want to make it as a screenwriter, you have to move to the City of Angels. Obviously that’s not entirely true as there are many exceptions to the rule (Scott Turow seems to have done just fine and still calls Chicago home). But the reality is that most of the titans of the publishing industry are in NYC and the studios that make up the Hollywood dream machine are in LA. So if you want to get your manuscript or screenplay in the right hands, well, then NYC or LA is the place to be.

The less obvious challenge is navigating your way around the Chicago writing community. Chicago’s writing community has historically been a bit fractured. There are lots of little parts scattered in various places, which can be overwhelming to some, especially if you’re new to the city’s literary scene and trying to find your place in it.

Although there are challenges for writers living in Chicago, there are benefits as well. Chicago is starting to prove false the old theory that you have to live in NYC or LA to make it as a writer. Chicago has become a hotbed of emerging and established writers. Some of the best literary talents are coming out of the City of Big Shoulders. Aleksandar Hemon. Joe Meno. Elizabeth Berg. Stuart Dybek. Audrey Niffenegger. Luis Alberto Urrea.

Chicago has a great tradition of crime writers that is hotter than ever. Sean Chercover. Marcus Sakey. Michael Harvey. Chicago’s poetry scene might outrank any other. It’s the home of Poetry magazine, Louder than a Bomb (the largest youth poetry festival in the world) and the birthplace of the poetry slam. And the 2^nd City is staking its claim as home to some of the best comics and graphic novel talents in the country. Chris Ware. Alex Ross. Jeffrey Brown. While everything in NYC or LA is big, small is thriving in Chicago. There’s an abundance of zines, journals and comics coming out of Chicago. There’s also an incredibly warm and welcoming literary community in Chicago that throws its arms around the little guys. Visit Twilight Tales, Danny’s Reading Series, The Chicago Underground Library, Reading Under the Influence, Essay Fiesta! or Windy City Story Slam.  Finally, that fractured literary community has begun to show signs of coming together, as evidenced by some of the changes we saw this year at the Printers Row Lit Fest where a number of the popular reading series were invited to show off their talents. And I think our own organization has played a significant role with the development of the Chicago Literary Hall of Fame.

The CWA has had an exciting year in terms of new projects. Tell us what’s been going on.

It has been an exciting year and it keeps getting more exciting as the year goes on. Most notable is the aforementioned Chicago Literary Hall of Fame, which has already had two big fundraising events this year featuring some of the city’s biggest literary talents and the announcement at the most recent event of the inaugural six inductees: Nelson Algren, Gwendolyn Brooks, Studs Terkel, Richard Wright, Lorraine Hansberry and Saul Bellow. We just announced that the historic Cliff Dwellers Club will serve as home to the Hall of Fame and that the induction of the first class will take place November 20 at Northeastern Illinois University. In addition to the Hall project, the CWA launched a successful Speakers Bureau that brought many of our members into area libraries and about a year and a half ago we started an online mentoring program for teen writers in conjunction with the Teen Writers and Artists Project (TWAAP).

Imagine for a moment that someone croaked and bequeathed a million dollars to the CWA. How would you want to use it?

Boy, you’ve been eavesdropping on my dreams. That would make my life as president of the CWA a whole lot easier. As it is now we have to scrape by for every little thing we get and we lean on my own mom to do a lot of the graphic arts work for us, which she does voluntarily without compensation other than the presents I buy for her out of my own pocket. There’s a long wish list of things I’d like to see happen if we didn’t have to worry about spending more than we have, which isn’t much. But probably first and foremost I’d love for the CWA to have its own physical space in Chicago with a paid executive director and staff to do a lot of the work that I and the other board members now do. Sort of my dream is a place that could serve as home to the Chicago Literary Hall of Fame and also incorporate the administrative offices of the CWA, a meeting room, and a library that would be a place for our members to come to read or write. Can I get all of that for a million dollars?

In addition to being the president of the CWA, you’re a writer. Tell us about your own work. Any new projects on the horizon?

I joined CWA for the same reason a lot of our members joined it and it certainly wasn’t with the goal of becoming its president. When I joined, CWA was a Yahoo! email group, started by Diana Laskaris, who, like me, is a lawyer. That was in 2005 and I had just come out with my first book, Lost in the Ivy, and I was a lot like my protagonist, somewhat lost and looking for direction. CWA helped me find my way and I became more involved and started pushing for it to be more than what it was. A steering committee was formed and from that it was decided that we’d form as a nonprofit, which we did in late 2006. Diana asked me to take the reins as president, a position that I’ve now held for three-plus years. This position has opened up doors and introduced me to people that I’d otherwise never have met. It led me to become involved in the publishing of Cubbie Blues: 100 Years of Waiting Till Next Year, an anthology to which I also contributed. But my involvement with CWA has somewhat ironically taken away some of that precious time I used to have for writing. That’s not to say that I’m not writing at all. I am working on a second novel with the help of a critique group that was started through CWA. It’s more than half complete but it has taken four years for me to get that far. I’m at a point in my life where I am not in a rush to get to the end. I don’t consider myself a professional writer. I’ve got a paying job and it’s not as a writer. I write for the joy of it, and, at least for now, I’m content with that.