Welcome/Introduction

[Richard]

This Q&A is about the writing of Richard Sharp, author of the novel,Crystal Ships, an epic of the Sixties released 22 November 2013, The Duke Don't Dance, and two 19th Century American historical novels, Jacob's Cellarand Time Is the Oven.

[Rick-Founder JM CM BOOK CLUB]

Wonderful to be a member of this group-another Richard here!
Rick from Florida!
Love historical novels and your book is right up my alley!!

[Richard]

Personal information. I am a member of the "Silent Generation," the subject of "The Duke Don't Dance." Born in the 1940s into a farming family who had migrated to rural Colorado from Oklahoma during the Dust Bowl, I traveled east as a young adult to receive degrees from Harvard and Princeton Universities. My writing is enriched from career experiences across America and in some four dozen countries, spanning the Vietnam War era through the present. Following years in the Washington, DC area, with assignments mainly in Asia, Africa, Latin America and the former Soviet Union (many providing scenes for "The Duke..."), I now reside with my wife in Charlotte, North Carolina.

[Richard]

Thank you, Rick and JR --

Some may disagree with my calling a novel that extends into the present "historical fiction," but at least that conveys more to the potential reader than "literary fiction," which only says to most people that the writer has a large ego. In my defense, I did try to make my saga of some fifty years as historically accurate as possible in terms of events and settings. In today's rapidly changing world that requires a bit of research, even if you lived through it!

J wrote: "Thank you Richard for the invite.I enjoy reading about History and your novel sounds very interesting.
Thank you, J.R.Ortiz"

[Richard]

All of my published and pending books, review excerpts and other information now have a home at http://richardsharpnovels.com/

[Al]

Richard, happy to see you have a home for all of your published and pending books!

[Richard]

Crystal Ships, pending release on Amazon in paperback in late November 2013 and on Kindle a week or two latewr is a sweeping saga of American idealism and disillusionment, Crystal Ships follows one group of friends through twenty years of violence, hope, and social revolution during the country’s infamous “decades of discontent.”

With his signature prose, Sharp takes readers from the heady days of the 1960s, when Kennedy’s Camelot appeared as a shining beacon of hope, all the way into the turbulent 1970s, as race riots, assassinations, drugs, gender conflicts, and the Vietnam War came crashing into the American consciousness to the beat of the strident music of the day.

Seven lives rise and fall against the backdrop of these monumental events, with each one poignantly capturing the spirit of the time in which they live. From the Vietnam War vet to the aspiring poet, each individual carries the burden of the times.

Full of tragedy, hope, and a knowing humor, Crystal Ships ultimately stands as a novel for a troubled era that occupies a near-empty shelf in American historical fiction.

Link to Crystal Ships cover
http://richardsharpnovels.com/wp-cont...

[Richard]

UPDATE: In addition to my author web site at http://richardsharpnovels.com/ I now have an author facebook page:
www.facebook.com/Richard.Sharp.author (Richard_Sharp_Novels)

My twitter page is:
twitter.com/RGSharp_author (@RGSharp_author)

All my books are on amazon.com and shelfari.com (where there is quite a bit of extra info on each book.

[Richard]

The setting in my novels are almost all based on places that I have lived or visited. For the nineteenth century novels, those places are also those my ancestors passed through and which were the subject of some family lore. For the more modern novels, both the foreign and domestic places are typically settings where I studied, worked and/or lived. Despite the realism this experience provides to the scenes, none of the characters are autobiographical or biographical. As they say, any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental.