Letters – Roberta Rich

How a Walk Through Venice Inspired Me to Write a Novel

January 22, 2015March 20, 2018 by

Off the Shelf January 14th 2015 Venice dazzles. It beguiles. During the day it glitters. At night it is so quiet, so filled with shadows, you can hear the drip of water off the oars of the gondolas, the closing of the shutters on the palazzi along the Grand Canal,…

Free Ranging Crime In Mexico

June 15, 2014March 20, 2018 by

El Ojo Del Lago June 2014 Don’t get me wrong. I love Mexico. In fact, so much I bought a house here. But the crime? It’s got to stop. Let me tell you about the most recent incident. This year I bought, along with two of my neighbours, the land…

Venice

December 1, 2013March 20, 2018 by

Roberta Rich, Special to National Post | 29/11/13 Venice dazzles. It beguiles. It fascinates. During the day it glitters like a diamond in the sun. At night it is so quiet, so filled with shadows, you can hear the drip of water off the oars of the gondolas, the closing…

Sometimes history throws me a bone

December 1, 2013March 20, 2018 by

Roberta Rich, Special to National Post | 28/11/13 I am a truly inept plotter, not a good quality in a writer of historical fiction. But sometimes history smiles and throws me a bone. In the case of the Ottoman Empire, which I researched for my latest novel, I was thrown…

Where are the sumptuary laws when we need them?

December 1, 2013March 20, 2018 by

Roberta Rich, Special to National Post | 27/11/13 I used to be in favour of vulgar displays — mine own and other people’s. Now I’m not so sure. Never mind how I heard the details, but last week someone told me about a Vancouver billionaire — and while this story…

My novel writing avoidance program

December 1, 2013March 20, 2018 by

Roberta Rich, Special to National Post | 26/11/13 1:30 PM ET I am highly distractible. Just trying to start this article I vacillated between fonts: Should I use Garamond, which is strong and elegant; or Times New Roman, business-like and plain; or Georgia, a beguiling compromise, the little black dress…

March 2, 2010March 20, 2018 by Venice

Venice

Monday, March 1, 2010Friends ask me what I do in Colima, a town of about 200,000 souls south of Guadalajara as though I morphed into a totally different person when I cross the border into Mexico. Well, actually I do. For one thing I have fewer distractions here. No phone,…

March 2, 2010March 20, 2018 by Venice

Venice

A common question friends and reader ask me is what prompted me to write about the 16th century Venetian ghetto? I am not an historian, in fact until I started the book, had not been much interested in history. I was flummoxed about how to respond to this question until…

June 2, 2008March 20, 2018 by Venice

Venice

Driving three thousand kilometres from Vancouver to Colima, Mexico with Maggie is an unalloyed pleasure- except for one thing. She is seven years old now, placid, sedate, the doggy equivalent of late middle age, kind of like us. She has her bed in the back of the station wagon and…