Interviews With Writers

Author Interviews from Writers Around the World

  • Home
  • Advertising
  • Contact Us
  • Interview Submission
  • Privacy Policy
  • Sites in the BookGoodies Network
You are here: Home / Bargain Books Under $3 / 50 States by Richard R. Becker

50 States by Richard R. Becker

By Interviews With Writers

50 States by Richard R. Becker

An Idaho farmer who aches for absolution after a tragedy is given one more chance at redemption. Two runaways cross paths in a Tennessee bus station with only one ticket between them. A family sees looters racing toward their home as they escape an Oregon wildfire. A young couple takes a reckless turn off a state highway in Utah and find themselves in a nightmarish government biohazard area.

These and 46 more shorts make up an anthology that will surprise readers with each new thought-provoking story as they skip effortlessly across different genres, moods, and states of mind. Together, they provide a character-driven sampling of the American experience over the last 60 years — the kind and the cruel, the heroic and criminal — in unpredictable and exciting ways.

50 States is a debut collection of short stories that captures the human condition and reveals how perception shapes destiny. The book spans several literary genres with each short story set in a different state across America. It is soon to be released as an audiobook, narrated by a 5-time Emmy winner.


Targeted Age Group:: All
Heat/Violence Level: Heat Level 3 – PG-13

What Inspired You to Write Your Book?
50 States started as a project to write one story a week for 50 weeks. As the project evolved and stories took shape, it felt natural to start setting each one in a different state.

Originally, the idea of writing one story a week came from friends and colleagues. As a commercial writer, I write other people's stories and advertisements all the time. My friends encouraged me to put my own project first, set deadlines, and then finish the story within that time frame no matter what. My immersion in this project became an inspiration.

How Did You Come up With Your Characters?
My characters come from anywhere and everywhere. They almost always begin as some tiny characteristic or demographic and then develop organically as each story unfolds.


Book Sample
Dead Ends
Utah 1992

She hung the cigarette he had lit for her out the window of the Pontiac Sunbird, the car handling the desert highway nicely at 65 mph. Steady as she goes. Liam lit his own, sitting back in the seat and putting a foot up on the dash.
The air blowing into the cabin was hot, but neither of them cared. The ride was smooth, and the drive back to St. George was long enough that his head started drifting along with Pink Floyd’s “Momentary Lapse of Reason.” Her car always surprised him on the open road.
His only mental reference to Pontiac was the dark blue Grand Prix his grandfather drove in the '70s, back when everybody drove them until GM hurt the brand in the '80s. His parents had been more practical, favoring compact cars like a Vega, an Omni, and even a Gremlin. He couldn’t imagine rumbling through the desert in any of those.
Somehow the Sunbird had saved some of the brand’s stigma, and he could see why every time they took a trip. GM had made the car for road trips, and he and Evelyn had taken plenty together, long hours exploring the American west, which was not what her dad had in mind when he bought it seven years ago as a college commuter.
“You’re riding that centerline an awful lot, Ev,” he said. “Want me to drive?”
“No, I’m fine,” Evelyn lied. “It’s the music. Floyd makes me sleepy.”
“Ah, what do you want then?” he asked. “Sing-alongs with Paula Abdul — Opposites Attract. You be the damsel, and I’ll be the skat cat?”
“Very funny,” she laughed. “Maybe we should just get off the highway for a while.”
He put his foot down and untucked the map he had inserted between his seat and the center console. They hadn’t seen anything for several miles, so he was sure there had to be a turnoff, side road, or easement access somewhere up ahead. A break would do them both some good.
“What’s that ahead?” she asked, pushing the map down so he could see.
“I don’t know,” he said, flipping it back up. “It’s not on the map.”
“Awesome,” she said, tossing the cigarette out the window. “Let’s take it!”
Her declaration gave him a feeling of déjà vu, which he mostly attributed to a flashback from last year when they had cut across Death Valley along poorly marked back roads better left forgotten. The thought of it still made him queasy, that chronic nag every time they crested a summit not knowing if the road would fall off the edge of a cliff. Or the contrast, that strange and oppressive loneliness that came upon him in the middle of an expansive valley when the only lifeline to civilization was the thin, well-worn tread on the tires.
The back end of the Sunbird fishtailed as it hit gravel, throwing up a cloud of dust and bringing him back to the present. She laughed as she took the turn too fast and he thrust the open map down into his lap, ripping it along the centerfold. Then she steered in the direction of the slide, slowed slightly, and sped up again.
The highway fell behind them, like a ship losing sight of its harbor while heading out to sea, an ocean of deep beige with tufts of green sage in place of white caps. The road rolled along, gravel giving way to two ruts as they approached the opening of a distant fence line. There was no gate, only a cattle grate and the remnant of what was probably a no trespassing sign.
“What do you think?” he asked.
“I think it’s an adventure,” she said.
He asked her if she still thought so when they passed another sign a mile in, and then again when they passed a newer sign about a half-mile beyond that one. It wasn’t until they came upon an old tire with the words “Keep Out” written in orange fluorescent paint that she seemed slightly deterred. Just beyond the tire, about three hundred yards ahead, a newer gate with a larger yellow sign sat before them — type too small to make out. It was flanked by a smaller black, red, and white sign that screamed DANGER.
“What do you think it says?” she asked after stopping the car near the tire.
“I can’t read it clearly,” he said. “But I know what this one says.”
He was looking out the passenger-side window at a smaller sign below the tire.
“Trespassers will be shot,” he said flatly.
“Think we should turn around?”


Links to Purchase Print Book version – Click links for book samples, reviews and to purchase
Buy Print Edition at Amazon
Buy at Barnes and Noble

Links to Purchase eBook version – Click links for book samples, reviews and to purchase
Buy this eBook On Amazon
Buy this eBook on Barnes and Noble for Nook
Buy this eBook on iBooks
Buy this eBook on Kobo
Buy this eBook on Google Play
Buy this eBook on Scribd


About the Author

Please join this author’s email list

For joining the author’s email/newsletter list you will get:
quarterly first draft fiction

Learn more about the author on their website
Follow the author on Amazon

Follow the author on Social Media:
Facebook
Twitter
Goodreads
Pinterest
Instagram
LinkedIn
YouTube Channel

All information was provided by the author and not edited by us. This is so you get to know the author better.

Filed Under: Bargain Books Under $3, Buyer's Guides, Fiction, Heat Level 3 - PG-13, Print Books Tagged With: 50 States, adventure, Bets Short Stories, literary fiction, paranormal, psychological thriller, Richard R. Becker, short stories, suspense, thrillers

Follow Us!

  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Pinterest
  • RSS
  • Twitter

Search our Site

Featured Books

Featured Book: The Island by Sean Platt

About Featured Book: The Island by Sean Platt Free from 1/23/2023 through 1/31/2023 From the multiple best-selling author team that brought you Pattern Black and Burnout comes a brand new transcendent mindfuck of a fantasy novel. Two powerful and fierce immortal gods are trapped on an island, endlessly pursuing a Sisyphean task that must be […]

Featured Book: Uprooted: Family Trauma, Unknown Origins, and the Secretive History of Artificial Insemination by Peter J. Boni

About Featured Book: Uprooted: Family Trauma, Unknown Origins, and the Secretive History of Artificial Insemination by Peter J. Boni How a journey of self-discovery unearthed the scandalous evolution of artificial insemination By his forties, Peter J. Boni was an accomplished CEO, with a specialty in navigating high-tech companies out of hot water. Just before his […]

About Featured Book: On Mission: Your Journey to Authentic Leadership by John Buford, PhD Sean Georges, JD, LLM

About Featured Book: On Mission: Your Journey to Authentic Leadership by John Buford, PhD Sean Georges, JD, LLM January 2023 eBook discount: $0.99 Become a mission-focused, people-centric leader. On Mission serves as a resource for personal leadership development, crafted by Sean Georges and John Buford, two former marine officers with a combined 80 years of […]

Featured Book: ALL REPORT: Culture, Diversity, Leadership – Stop Talking And Execute by Diane Primo

About Featured Book: ALL REPORT: Culture, Diversity, Leadership – Stop Talking And Execute by Diane Primo eBook FREE to download from 1/23 – 1/27/2023 A must-read for every CEO and high-level executive, ALL enables executives to become active participants in the dialogue around diversity, equity and inclusion. ALL may be the first book to document […]

Featured Book: Saving Sophie by Debbie Schrack

About Featured Book: Saving Sophie by Debbie Schrack Seventeen-year-old Gabe Hunter knows he has a purpose in life. He has always strived to be the “best of the best,” but lately nothing has gone his way. Gabe was devastated six months earlier when his half-brother Josh had a drunk driving accident that killed four members […]

Categories

  • Action & Adventure
  • Activity Books
  • Audiobook
  • Audiobooks
  • Autobiographies
  • Bargain Books Under $3
  • Biblical Studies
  • Biographical Fiction
  • Biographies & Memoirs
  • Birds
  • Body/Mind/Spirit
  • Book and eReader Sleeves
  • BookGoodies Network Merch
  • Business Books
  • Buyer's Guides
  • Children and Young Adult Books
  • Children's – Education & Reference
  • Children's Activity Book
  • Children's Books
  • Children's eBooks
  • Christian Fiction
  • Christian Non-Fiction
  • Clean Romance
  • Coloring Books for Adults
  • Coloring Books for Kids
  • Comedy
  • Comic Books
  • Cowboy Romance
  • Cozy Mystery
  • Devotionals
  • Dogs
  • Drama
  • Educational/How-to
  • Erotic
  • Erotic Science Fiction
  • Erotica
  • Essays
  • Fairy Tale
  • Faith and Religion
  • Fantasy
  • Featured Books
  • Features
  • Fiction
    • Romance
  • Fiction Audio Books
  • Fitness
  • Gifts for Book Lovers
  • Giveaways
  • Health & Fitness
  • Heat Level 1 – G Rated Clean Read
  • Heat Level 2 – PG
  • Heat Level 3 – PG-13
  • Heat Level 4 – R Rated
  • Heat Level 5 – NC-17
  • Historical
  • Historical Fiction
  • Historical Romance
  • Horror
  • Humor
  • Humor (Fiction)
  • Inspirational Books for You
  • Interviews
  • Journal
  • Journaling
  • Kindle Unlimited
  • Kindle Unlimited eBooks
  • Kindle Vella
  • Kindle Vella Serial
  • Limited Time Free Promotion
  • Love and Marriage
  • Magic
  • Memoir
  • Military Science Fiction
  • Music
  • Mystery
  • Mystery/Suspense
  • Mystery/Thriller
  • New Age
  • News
  • Non-fiction
  • Nonfiction Audio Books
  • Nonfiction Audiobooks
  • Paranormal
  • Paranormal Romance
  • Permafree
  • PermaFree Books
  • Personal Growth
  • Pet and Animal
  • Poetry
  • Print
  • Print Books
  • Prophecy
  • Regency Romance
  • Romance – Erotica
  • Romantic Suspense
  • Science Fiction
  • SciFi
  • Spiritual Growth
  • Thriller
  • Time Travel
  • Travel
  • Urban Fantasy
  • Western Romance
  • Women's Fiction
  • Women's Health
  • YA – Action and Adventure
  • YA – Fantasy
  • Young Adult

Podcasts with Writers

Interview with Author – Joanne Hillyer

Interview with Author – Allen Filson

Interview with Author – Sally J. Ling

Interview with Author – Dalton Smith

Interview with Author – Nicole Delacroix

More Posts from this Category

Featured Books

Featured Book: The Secret of the Lost Pharaoh by Carolyn Arnold

Featured Book: The Eva Rae Thomas Mystery Series: Book 1-2 by Willow Rose

Featured Book: Killing the Secret by Donna Welch Jones

Featured Book: Positively Georgia: Chin Up, Pup: Canine Confidence by Elizabeth Ferris

Featured Book: Songbird by Karen Heenan

More Posts from this Category

Around the Site

  • Home
  • Advertising
  • Contact Us
  • Interview Submission
  • Privacy Policy
  • Sites in the BookGoodies Network

Copyright © 2023 · A BookGoodies Partner Site · Powered by WordPress and Genesis