Lori Rader-Day

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Lori Rader-Day

Goodreads Author


Born
in Thorntown, Indiana, The United States
Website

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Member Since
December 2007

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LORI RADER-DAY is the Edgar Award-nominated, Agatha, Anthony, and Mary Higgins Clark Award-winning author of Wreck Your Heart, The Death of Us, Death at Greenway, The Lucky One, Under a Dark Sky, The Day I Died, Little Pretty Things, and The Black Hour. Lori’s short fiction has appeared in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, Time Out Chicago, Good Housekeeping, and others. She lives in Chicago, where she is the co-chair of the mystery reader event Midwest Mystery Conference and teaches creative writing for Northwestern University. She is a former national president of Sisters in Crime. Visit her at LoriRaderDay.com.

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Lori Rader-Day The best thing about being a writer is writing. It's also the worst thing about being a writer.

It's also pretty great to meet someone who has read your book.
Lori Rader-Day I've decided to re-read Agatha Christie this summer—what could be better? I did read many AC books to be able to write my new book, Death at Greenway,…moreI've decided to re-read Agatha Christie this summer—what could be better? I did read many AC books to be able to write my new book, Death at Greenway, which takes place at Christie's holiday home during World War II. But there are some gaps in my reading history of her works, and I'd like to fix that. Also, who wouldn't want to spend the summer reading delish mysteries?(less)
Average rating: 3.43 · 18,140 ratings · 2,795 reviews · 15 distinct worksSimilar authors
Little Pretty Things

3.45 avg rating — 3,390 ratings — published 2015
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Black Hour

3.40 avg rating — 3,177 ratings — published 2014 — 14 editions
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Death at Greenway

3.31 avg rating — 2,877 ratings — published 2021 — 11 editions
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The Day I Died

3.49 avg rating — 2,572 ratings — published 2017 — 10 editions
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The Death of Us

3.54 avg rating — 2,421 ratings — published 2023 — 8 editions
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The Lucky One

3.31 avg rating — 1,883 ratings — published 2020 — 10 editions
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Under a Dark Sky

3.50 avg rating — 1,671 ratings — published 2018 — 11 editions
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The Sweet Spot

3.06 avg rating — 68 ratings
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Wreck Your Heart

4.90 avg rating — 10 ratings3 editions
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The Minotaur Sampler, Volum...

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WRECK YOUR HEART gets a STAR from Library Journal!


STARRED REVIEW! Got the news this morning, burst into tears.

Look. Writing a novel is a long haul, and this one? I put a lot of myself into it. I worked really hard on it. I moved publishers, a process fraught with self-doubt. And, by moving publishers, I also inserted more time into the process of publication. It’s been two full years since my last book, The Death of Us, came out.

All this to say,

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Published on September 30, 2025 15:02

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Lori’s Recent Updates

17366
“If you go home with somebody, and they don't have books, don't fuck 'em!”
...more
John Waters
2778055
“(talking about when he tells his wife he’s going out to buy an envelope) Oh, she says well, you’re not a poor man. You know, why don’t you go online and buy a hundred envelopes and put them in the closet? And so I pretend not to hear her. And go out to get an envelope because I’m going to have a hell of a good time in the process of buying one envelope. I meet a lot of people. And, see some great looking babes. And a fire engine goes by. And I give them the thumbs up. And, and ask a woman what kind of dog that is. And, and I don’t know. The moral of the story is, is we’re here on Earth to fart around. And, of course, the computers will do us out of that. And, what the computer people don’t realize, or they don’t care, is we’re dancing animals.”
Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
54761
“Man, sometimes it takes you a long time to sound like yourself.”
Miles Davis
" Kathy, hello! I love Lou's books and OF COURSE The Hound of the Baskervilles. I read all three of Raynor Winn's books this year (re-reading the first ...more "
More of Lori's books…
Quotes by Lori Rader-Day  (?)
Quotes are added by the Goodreads community and are not verified by Goodreads. (Learn more)

“I was still thinking about what he’d said about belief. We are more than the magic we believe in. We are more. It had never occurred to me to be more. My life had been chiseled down to the smallest portion. My own doing. I had only ever made plans to be less, to be nothing more than alive.”
Lori Rader-Day, The Day I Died

“Did he not know that there was a lower point, yet, when you had accepted your own fate but found yourself too weak to go through with it? The point at which you understood you had made not a single ripple in the pond, and neither would your loss.”
Lori Rader-Day, Little Pretty Things

“I was afraid that I could have changed everything, and hadn’t. I was afraid that everything could yet change, or not, and I was the one who had to decide. I was afraid of choices I had let go, of decisions I might never make. I was afraid I had turned down every opportunity to be someone other than who I was now. I was afraid I would never get back to someplace real, someplace on the map that would feel like a place to start. I was afraid of the future. I didn’t think I’d ever thought about the future before, beyond fantasies. Fantasies didn’t require anything from me, but real life, the real future, did. I held the lifejackets against the slight swell of my belly. I had never had a future before.”
Lori Rader-Day, The Day I Died

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“I don't teach writing. I teach patience. Toughness. Stubbornness. The willingness to fail. I teach the life. The odd thing is most of the things that stop an inexperienced writer are so far from the truth as to be nearly beside the point. When you feel glosbal doubt about your talent, that is your talent. People who have no talent don't have any doubt.”
Richard Bausch

“Running a close second [as a writing lesson] was the realization that stopping a piece of work just because it's hard, either emotionally or imaginatively, is a bad idea. Sometimes you have to go on when you don't feel like it, and sometimes you're doing good work when it feels like all you're managing is to shovel shit from a sitting position.”
Stephen King

“Writing is a dog’s life, but the only one worth living.”
Gustave Flaubert

“Being in an M.F.A. is like living in a sci-fi biosphere on an alien planet, where everyone shares your obscure visionary notions: namely, that literature matters, that English professors know more than other people, that typing, alone, in a library, is what everyone should be doing on a Friday night. Better to tell strangers that speaking Klingon is what turns you on.”
Adam Johnson

“A good [short story] would take me out of myself and then stuff me back in, outsized, now, and uneasy with the fit.”
David Sedaris

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Richard Dominguez thank you for the friend


BeckyT Thanks! Not a textbook, just personal exploration. I LOVE Bird by Bird. Lamott is fantastic. What course are you teaching at RU??


message 3: by Lori

Lori Rader-Day Lori wrote: "IMO, the best instructional book on writing is John Dufresne's The Lie that Tells a Truth. The best inspirational one might be Annie Lamott's Bird by Bird. Looking for a textbook? I think I'll be u..."


message 2: by Lori

Lori Rader-Day IMO, the best instructional book on writing is John Dufresne's The Lie that Tells a Truth. The best inspirational one might be Annie Lamott's Bird by Bird. Looking for a textbook? I think I'll be using the Dufresne book for the class I'm teaching this fall. At RU!


BeckyT What is the best book on fiction writing you have read?


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