Interview with Rick Moskovitz
Hi Rick Moskovitz, thank you for agreeing to this interview.
Oltobooks : Tell us a little about yourself and your background?
Rick Moskovitz : I'm a Harvard educated psychiatrist who sees the future through the lens of enduring moral and emotional struggles.
Oltobooks : What are your ambitions for your writing career?
Rick Moskovitz : My stories are my legacy. I'd like as many people as possible to experience the worlds I create and to learn what I hold dear and how I envision the world for the generations to come.
Oltobooks : When did you decide to become a writer?
Rick Moskovitz : In the early nineties, I had something new to say about Borderline Personality Disorder and joined my expertise with my passion for teaching to write a book for patients and their families, kindling my love for the process of writing. A few years later, my fascination with the nuances and malleability of memory led me write my first work of fiction, a psychological mystery about recovered memories.
Oltobooks : Why do you write?
Rick Moskovitz : I love words and I love to craft stories that pique the imagination, draw people into unfamiliar worlds, and instill wonder.
Oltobooks : What made you decide to sit down and actually start something?
Rick Moskovitz : As I observed the pursuit of radical life extension and perhaps eventually immortality, I wondered how the choices will be made and at what price to humanity and to the world. These questions became the driving force behind A Stand-in for Dying, the first book of the Brink of Life Trilogy.
Oltobooks : Where do your ideas come from?
Rick Moskovitz : Some ideas come from years of listening to people tell me about their dreams and their challenges, some from my voracious consumption of scientific discovery and invention, and some from everyday experiences like the drive through window at my bank.
Oltobooks : What is the hardest thing about writing?
Rick Moskovitz : Starting something new.
Oltobooks : What is the easiest thing about writing?
Rick Moskovitz : The rare occurrences when my characters seem to take over and write themselves.
Oltobooks : If this book is part of a series, tell us a little about it?
Rick Moskovitz : The Brink of Life Trilogy is about our greed for life and the unintended consequences of pursuing immortality. It is about how the finiteness of life lends life its meaning and makes it precious. And it is ultimately about how we make choices about power, wealth, and fame and about life and death that shape our destiny and character.
Oltobooks : What are your thoughts on writing a book series?
Rick Moskovitz : A good series grows, introducing something new with each book, a unique story that springs from the world of its predecessor and takes it to another level. Each book of my Trilogy has a new protagonist, developed from a minor character introduced in a previous book.
Oltobooks : What is your favourite positive saying?
Rick Moskovitz : To persuade, you must first listen well.
Oltobooks : Where can you see yourself in 5 years’ time?
Rick Moskovitz : Still creative and still working on the crucial problems of our world, with some of the solutions hopefully becoming clearer.
Oltobooks : What advice would you give to your younger self?
Rick Moskovitz : The events that most change your life, for better or for worse, are the ones you least expect.
Conversation By :
Oltobooks Team
I sat so merry in my abode
Loving hands around me
I dreamt of such glorious days
One day i would see
I remember the day I left
My room
I closed the door behind me
One quick look again
Then walked away
The room which would always remind me
The glorious days I had dreamt
I did merrily spent
How little did I then know
Life turns on a dime
My room is now not as it was
When I closed the door
Behind me
My room now is a prison
But not how one would invision
It is one of sorrow and grief
Sadness burns into the bare walls
I catch my breath
And weep
Why did thou'st doth betray?
The room which once embraced me
I ask with riddled heart
Jagged and torn
Which wicked riddles have I thus sought?
I sit still
I am now my room
No dreams as once before
I age before my open door
In my room long ago
I sat merrily in my loving abode
Loving hands did hold me
All gone
My room and myself
Now one
Two thrust to be together
Forever
Alone