Hi. I’m Richard. I write things for people. This is my homepage.
A lot of my work is for corporate, executive, PR, or similar types of clients. (I’m also a translator.) (You can find all that at blockletters.de).
Everything else — the stuff that gets my name on it — goes here.
I’m also a two-time champion on Jeopardy!. Could’ve made it three, but I was bested by a worthy opponent.
I will never forget Death on the Nile or the year Pan Am landed its last plane.
FAQs
What exactly do you write?
A variety of things. Journalism, creative non-fiction, fiction. Music sometimes. As I build out this site, I’ll add clips.
I also do a lot of ghostwriting, content writing, and copywriting, as well as translation from French and German into English. Furthermore, I’m an expert editor. I’ve moved my home for business-to-business and editorial services to www.blockletters.de, though. Visit me and write me there.
Where are you?
I live in Berlin, but I spend several weeks per year in Los Angeles, where I am from.
Did you pick up French and German at home?
Nope. I did three years of French in high school, then in my late twenties I decided it was time to get serious about life goals. One of them was to become bilingual, or as close as possible. So I got a job in a school in France, to immerse myself. By thirty, I reckon, I was most of the way there. Then I got an MA in translation and interpreting, after which I began learning German. It’s an ongoing learning process, and that’s what makes it fun.
What was Alex Trebek like?!
I didn’t meet him one-on-one. He made a crack in my third game about how I had “won ugly,” and someone once told me they thought that wasn’t nice, but that’s the same phrase I had just used during a break in taping. I took pride in it. I remember Alex as a pleasant and professional man, and I’m amazed at the job Ken Jennings has done not only in filling his shoes but in making them look like they fit naturally. (To strain the metaphor a little.)
(Shout out to the Jeopardy! production staff. Them, I talked to at length. They were ANGELS.)