Author Bio
• Birth—September 25, 1955
• Where—New Britain, Connecticut, USA
• Education—Connecticut College (did not take a degree)
• Currently—lives in Lyme, Connecticut and New York City
Luanne Rice is the New York Times bestselling author who has inspired the devotion of readers everywhere with her moving novels of love and family. She has been hailed by critics for her unique gifts, which have been described as "a beautiful blend of love and humor, with a little magic thrown in."
Rice began her writing career in 1985 with her debut novel Angels All Over Town. Since then, she has gone on to pen a string of heartwarming bestsellers. Several of her books have been adapted for television, including Crazy in Love, Blue Moon, Follow the Stars Home, and Beach Girls.
Rice was born in New Britain, Connecticut, where her father sold typewriters and her mother, a writer and artist, taught English. Throughout her childhood, Rice spent winters in New Britain and summers by Long Island Sound in Old Lyme, where her mother would hold writing workshops for local children. Rice's talent emerged at a very young age, and her first short story was published in American Girl Magazine when she was 15.
Rice later attended Connecticut College, but dropped out when her father became very ill. At this point, she knew she wanted to be a writer. Instead of returning to college, Rice took on many odd jobs, including working as a cook and maid for an exalted Rhode Island family, as well as fishing on a scallop boat during winter storms. These life experiences not only cultivated the author's love and talent for writing, but shaped the common backdrops in her novels of family and relationships on the Eastern seaboard. A true storyteller with a unique ability to combine realism and romance, Rice continues to enthrall readers with her luminous stories of life's triumphs and challenges.
In her words
From a 2008 Barnes & Noble interview:
• I take guitar lessons.
• I was queen of the junior prom. Voted in, according to one high school friend I saw recently, as a joke because my date and I were so shy, everyone thought it would be hilarious to see us onstage with crowns on our heads.
• I shared a room with both sisters when we were little, and I felt sorry for kids who had their own rooms.
• To support myself while writing in the early days, I worked as a maid and cook in one of the mansions in Newport, Rhode Island. I'd learned to love to cook in high school, by taking French cooking from Sister Denise at the convent next door to the school. The family I worked for didn't like French cooking and preferred broiled meat, well done, and frozen vegetables.
• I lived in Paris. The apartment was in the Eighth Arrondissement. Every morning I'd take my dog for a walk to buy the International Herald Tribune and have coffee at a cafe around the corner. Then I'd go upstairs to the top floor, where I'd...write.... Living in another country gave me a different perspective on the world. I'm glad I realized there's not just one way to see things.
• While living there, I found out my mother had a brain tumor. She came to Paris to stay with me and have chemotherapy at the American Hospital. She'd never been on a plane before that trip. In spite of her illness, she loved seeing Paris. I took her to London for a week, and as a teacher of English and a lover of Dickens, that was her high point.
After she died, I returned to France and made a pilgrimage to the Camargue, in the South. It is a mystical landscape of marsh grass, wild bulls, and white horses. It is home to one of the largest nature sanctuaries in the world, and I saw countless species of birds. The town of Stes. Maries de la Mer is inspiring beyond words. Different cultures visit the mysterious Saint Sarah, and the presence of the faithful at the edge of the sea made me feel part of something huge and eternal. And all of it inspired my novel Light of the Moon.
• During that period I also wrote two linked books Summer's Child and Summer of Roses...and became involved with trying to help families affected by abuse in particular.... [I also worked with] Deborah Epstein's domestic violence clinic at Georgetown University Law Center.... A counselor recommended The Verbally Abusive Relationshipby Patricia Evans. It is life-changing, and I have given it to many women over the years.
• I became a vegetarian. I decided...I wanted only gentleness and peace in my life.... A friend reminds me of a great quote in the Zen tradition: "How you do anything is how you do everything.
• When asked what book most influenced her life as a writer, here's what she said:
[There] are two books. The Sea Around Us by Rachel Carson and Franny and Zooey by J.D. Salinger. Carson's book is scientific and poetic, and it taught me that every single thing we do contributes to the harm or well-being of ourselves and the oceans, the world at large. It influenced me to incorporate my love of nature into my fiction.
Franny and Zooey Glass are two of the all-time great siblings of fiction. Nothing has ever inspired me more than being a sister; when I was young, the only stories I wanted to write were about sisters from a close, funny, secretive family like mine. The Glass family was quirky and eccentric in ways that felt very familiar to me.... Salinger loved his characters so much...[he] taught me to love my characters. (Author bio and interview from Barnes & Noble.)