Author Interviews

A conversation with author Rick Skwiot about his novel Key West Story

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How did you get the idea of using Hemingway in your novel? Are you a fan? I was wrestling with an early draft of the novel, trying to capture the Key West essence and my experience there in a compelling way, when a sort of epiphany surfaced: Although writing “realistic” fiction, I was not prohibited [...]

Memory Writers Network interview

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Spiritual memoirs, interview with author Rick Skwiot by Jerry Waxler During the late 60s, when I was almost finished college, I wondered what life was going to be like out in the world. One source of inspiration came from books like Henry Miller’s sexy novels, Sexus, Nexus, and Plexus. Miller fled the United States to [...]

Alumnus writes memoir about Mexico

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From the UMSL Newsroom By Rose Postma Today University of Missouri–St. Louis alumnus Rick Skwiot is an award-winning author of several books, but in 1965 he was just a freshman beginning his education at UMSL. His unversity experience challenged and changed him. “Many students were first generation university students like me – ethnic, eager to break [...]

St. Louis Magazine interviews Rick Skwiot on “San Miguel de Allende, Mexico”

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How Paradise Affects the Memory Frequent SLM contributor Rick Skwiot writes both fiction and nonfiction; what he’s after is truth. In his new memoir— San Miguel de Allende, Mexico: Memoir of a Sensual Quest for Spiritual Healing—it takes experience, memory, and imagination (not to mention women and tequila) to dissolve his North American angst. “Instead [...]

Gabriela Popa, Author of Kafka’s House, Interviews Rick Skwiot

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Romanian-born novelist Gabriela Popa (author of Kafka’s House) recently interviewed Rick about his new memoir and his work. Following are excerpts from that interview. GABRIELA POPA: What can you tell us about San Miguel de Allende, Mexico: Memoir of Sensual Quest for Spiritual Healing. RICK SKWIOT: It’s been described—aptly, I think—as “sexy, surreal and darkly [...]

On Writing Christmas at Long Lake

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What Rick has to say about writing Christmas at Long Lake: A Childhood Memory While writing Christmas at Long Lake I re-read José Ortega Y Gasset’s The Revolt of the Masses, which helped me clarify what I was about in my memoir: depicting the last vestige of a folk culture as mass culture attained supremacy. [...]

Christmas at Long Lake Q&A

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From a Sauce Magazine email interview. Q. What sparked your desire to write this memoir? Was it something you’d been contemplating for quite a while? A. I think one of the first short stories I ever tried to write, years ago, attempted to capture the ongoing sense of loss I feel for that place and [...]