Rick has written several novels, both speculative and not. His novel about reincarnation and love, Orientation, won the EPIC Award for Best GLBT Novel last year, and two of his books are currently EPIC 2010 Awards finalists. Dead End Street is nominated in the Young Adult category and VGL Male Seeks Same is nominated in the Contemporary Romance Category. He’s also got a new novel called Blue Moon Cafe coming out in March from Amber Allure, and a short story in the forthcoming I Do Two charity anthology from MLR Press (proceeds go to the Lambda Legal).

Rick currently lives in Seattle with his partner and their Boston terrier, Lily. He is on Twitter, MySpace, and Facebook, and he maintains a blog at http://rickrreedreality.blogspot.com/.

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OA: Blue Moon Cafe is set in your current home city of Seattle. Did you use any actual places as background for the events in the book? Is there perhaps a real life inspiration for the Blue Moon Cafe?

RR: There are many real places in the book, including having my main character live in my own neighborhood, Green Lake. I also use many locations in the gay neighborhood just east of downtown, Capitol Hill. And I have a werewolf mauling take place at night in the Washington Park Arboretum. There is no real life inspiration for the Blue Moon Cafe, although I have since heard of such-named establishments. I was just after the werewolf connection and thought it sounded romantic, as well.

OA: You’ve been involved in AIDS-related causes in the past, and one of your books features a character who finds out he’s HIV positive. If we can’t eradicate AIDS entirely within our lifetime, how much hope is there for more happy endings like the one in NEG UB2?

RR: HIV and AIDS awareness is a cause that’s very important to me, for many reasons. I have lost friends to the virus, though you don’t hear about that as often these days. But as in NEG UB2, I think that everyone who has HIV or AIDS has just as much right and expectation to happiness as anyone else. We live with all kinds of illnesses, diabetes, cancer, AIDS, and it doesn’t stop us from seeking the same kind of happiness as anyone else, so I don’t think AIDS needs to be “eradicated” in order to find happiness, but I would love to see that day come. What a happy day that would be!

OA: Do you have any advice for people who’d like to help, or recommended resources for people who are HIV positive?

RR: Advice? Most major metro areas have AIDS-organizations who help people out and I would recommend checking into what volunteer opportunities are available in your town, since these places are usually low on funds and in need of help. So even if you can’t afford to help out financially, perhaps you can afford to give a little of your time. Poz.com is a great place to go to find resources and information.

OA: Dead End Street and VGL Male Seeks Same are up for the EPIC 2010 Awards. Can you tell us a bit about them?

RR: Dead End Street is my young adult horror novel from Amber Quill Press. It’s about five misfit teenagers who band together to tell stories in a notorious abandoned house in their small town, but the house may not be as abandoned as they think. It’s my only young adult work so far. VGL Male Seeks Same was my first foray into writing romance, and it’s the prequel to NEG UB2. It’s the often funny story about a gay everyman who goes online looking for love and when he doesn’t find it, creates a more appealing persona to draw others to him. Of course, complications arise.

OA: Will you be at EPICon in New Orleans when the EPIC Awards are presented, or are there other events you’ll be attending this year where readers can meet you in person?

RR: I am going to New Orleans in March for the conference and awards and I’m very much looking forward to it. I went to EPICon last year in Vegas and had an amazing time meeting other writers, editors, and publishers…all united by their interest in ebooks. So far, that’s the only conference I have planned. Believe it or not, I’m kind of a shy person, although I hide it pretty well most of the time. So a lot of my “networking” takes place online.

OA: As a reviewer for Dark Scribe Magazine, you read a lot of new books. Have you got any recommendations for us?

RR: Oh yes…here’s just a few titles I’ve recently raved about that are well worth checking out: Alive on the Inside, The Monster in the Box, The Birthing House, Hater, Shatter, and The Suicide Collectors. All of them have that wonderful quality of making it next-to-impossible to stop turning the pages.

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Thanks, Rick! Join us next Friday for another Spotlight, and in the meantime, check out VGL Male Seeks Same.