Please visit my website at http://www.Dreadmire.com
TV Commercial Starring Randy Richards
Randy Richards is an author, TV actor, photographer and dad. He has been playing Dungeons and Dragons since the late 70's, but started in earnest in the early 80's. "In the 1980's," Randy says, "we had the Basic D&D boxed game in our Gifted & Talented class, and I used to play a Cajun halfling. The other kids loved it, especially the accent." Randy graduated from Chalmette High School in 1984, then from college in 1989, and moved from Louisiana to Tennessee.
Commenting on the decision to move, Randy says, "My family is from Cades Cove in the Smoky Mountains. I just wanted to get closer to my roots - not to mention its gorgeous up there - so I moved to an area near Gatlinburg." The move proved to be beneficial for Randy's career in photography. "People know me for my writing," he says, "but they don't know my day job is photography (DanceBackwards.com). Olan Mills, which operates out of Chattanooga, hired me to work for them as a kids photographer, then a glamour photographer, and finally a church directory photographer."
..After five years in Tennessee, Randy was transferred to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and started a family. "This is when I first got published. I wrote "Dark Magic in New Orleans" for Dungeon Magazine (issue 71). After receiving scores of complimentary letters from people all over the world, I decided to start writing on a regular basis. With all my traveling with work there really wasn't time, but while driving I would make notes on anything available: cardboard boxes, gum wrappers, paper cups -- anything!"
In the late 90s Randy hosted a series of Gen Con events, one of which included the co-creators of D&D, Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson, and other big names including Frank Mentzer, Lisa Stevens (now CEO of Paizo Publishing), and Anne Brown, a writer for TSR. "This got my name known in the industry, although at the time that wasn't my goal. I was just trying to have fun and spread the joy of gaming."
A few years passed before Randy got the idea to write a book. "My daughter was getting older, and I wanted to have more time for her, so I decided to start my own photography business. An unintended side benefit was that I had more time available for writing. I would copy the scrap notes down when I got home, and as I was reading through them I realized they began to form a swamp theme.
That's when I started writing Dreadmire, a story about Cajun halflings (hobbits), undead mosquitoes, giant cockroaches, weregators, carnivorous plants, fungus demons, and monstrous catfish. In other words, it was just like Louisiana!" There were some false starts and delays before Dreadmire came to print, but Dreadmire was released in December of 2005 to rave reviews.
In 2005 Hurricane Katrina destroyed his hometown of Chalmette in St. Bernard Parish, Louisiana. "Right after the storm I initially went down there to survey my mom's house," Randy says, "which had been under 15 ft. of water. What I saw there stunned me. The landscape had been obliterated. There was no life - no birds, animals, people, or insects - nothing. All I could do was start taking pictures. I went up and down the parish taking photographs of everything I could, so that it could all be documented in a vivid way. I did it for myself. What I didn't realize until much later is that many people really wanted to see the photos."
Randy's photographs can be seen in a mobile museum that is on tour of the United States. It will return to Chalmette in two years and become part of a permanent display. You can see some of these photographs in article form at http://www.dancebackwards.com/truck.html
Randy in the News
