By the Sea

We've been posting videos on this website for some time now...but I'm at the beach shooting a video for The Silver Boat and can't wait for you to see it (soon!) Mike O'Gorman, my friend and video director, shot footage on the beach and by a fireplace with white tiles of dolphins, sea horses, starfish.  

I talk about characters, sisters, a few secrets from the novel.  The sea is so blue, the sun shining, and while we were shooting, a pod of dolphins swam past.  I built a sandcastle, and the waves washed it away.

Then we went swimming, because how could we not?

Cool blog

Thank you to Peter Schwartz and Third Face (LITERARY DISCOURSE FOR THE POST POST-MODERN SOPHISTICATE) for including our Luanne Rice video in their excellent blog.

I took this photo last week in the garden of my agent's house in Hollywood.  The piece is carved concrete, English, and old.  One of a pair, Ron is calling them the Literary Men.  I believe this one is the Second Face.

Video Love

Please get the popcorn.  Darken the lights.  And watch the videos made for luannerice.com by Michael O'Gorman.  The Pony Story...the Intro...more to come.  The Luanne Rice video series!  (Just go to "Multi-Media" on the home page here.)     I feel lucky to have Mike working for this site.  He is a comedian by day and night.  Like the undead, he gets no rest.  He is destined always to be funny.  He has has own show, and he frequently appears on VH-1, the Onion, and other hilarious tv shows.  He just so happens to be the main squeeze of my friend and associate Jessie Cantrell, and he has been working between jaunts to Vegas, Sunset Boulevard, and the PIT to make video magic for our site.

Now Mike has started out easy.  We wanted to ease the site into sweet, simple videos that introduce you to me and my writing.  It's a new way to get to know a little more, a little deeper.  At times Mike's avant garde innovation comes out.  I stare down the barrel of the camera at him and and quite certain i'm seeing the reincarnation of Cocteau.

No matter what, Mike has true heart.  He gets the emotional nature of my work and lets if come through.  He makes me laugh while doing it, threatening to ruin take after take because I can't hold it in.  He knows my novels, and sticks close to the spirit of them in the videos.  We've been lucky enough to uncover some ancient (truly! circa sixties and seventies) Rice family movies, and Mike has woven them into the current stories.

Honestly, in videos coming up we have footage of the Rice girls swimming AND real live images of Twigg Crawford--famous to many of my readers, considering he's both a recurring character and a dedicee (of "The Last Kiss.")

So please jump on the video love train. We'd love you to love them, and if so, to repost them to your friends.  If you have ideas, please just use the comment section under "multi-media."  Any videos you'd like to see me in?  Singing Francois Cabrel's "Encore et Encore" in French and pretending to be a cat playing with a catnip apple are two much-requested favorites.  Merci for those ideas, but we shall skip them for now.  Thank you for visiting my site, and I'm really hoping you'll groove to the videos and give them the popcorn shout-outs they deserve.

Friends and Favorites

I feel so lucky to be surrounded with creative, amazing friends and colleagues.  I have been with my literary agent, Andrea Cirillo, since the very beginning.  We were young when first we began; my mother actually accompanied me to the agency for my first meeting.  Long time ago, many books and much fun since then.  Ron Bernstein has been my film agent forever.  Thanks to him I've had movies and a mini-series made of my work, and gotten to spend much time on film sets. This website was created by Adrian Kinloch.  I thank him for his knowledge, vision, and the beautiful photographs he took at two photo shoots--one in Chelsea, the other at Rockaway Beach.  Jessie Cantrell is a writer, actress, and comedian who moonlights as my assistant.  Mike O'Gorman is a writer, actor, and comedian, and does all our videos.  Ted O'Gorman is a writer, actor, and comedian who fills in for Jessie when she's acting, and who also takes care of my three cats when I'm on the road.  Sarah Walker, writer, actress, comedian, and author of Really, You've Done Enough, is integral to many projects.

The photo above shows me with Audrey Loggia, my friend and California sister.  I'm godmother to her dog Maggie and she to my cat Maggie.  Even though she's allergic to cats.  A great friend indeed.

Jessie Cantrell Jessie is Luanne's assistant, friend, and fellow coffee lover.  She considers herself very fortunate to have such a wise, talented, supportive, generous, gorgeous and, most importantly, fun boss.  Jessie is an actress/comedian, so when she is not at The Half King with Luanne, she is auditioning for Coke commercials, making music, and/or working on sketch comedy shows for her group The Dan Ryan.  You can check out her stuff at jessiecantrell.com.

Mike O' Gorman Mike is the director and editor of video content for LuanneRice.com. O'Gorman is also an actor and writer, and has appeared in upcoming episodes of Comedy Central's Ugly Americans, Cartoon Network's Delocated,and VH1's The Short List. When he's not working on Luanne's videos, you can find him performing with his sketch comedy group, The Dan Ryan. Mike O'Gorman lives in New York City.   Follow Mike on facebook >

Sarah Walker Sarah is a writer and comedian living in NYC. Her column "Sarah Walker Shows You How" appears on McSweeney's Internet Tendency. She also blogs for Best Week Ever (bestweekever.tv). She enjoys cake and naps. For more about Sarah, go to her website: sarahwwalker.weebly.com

Ted O'Gorman Ted is an actor and comedian in New York. He is the former head writer for Black20.com's The Middle Show with David Price. In addition to his work in videos for LuanneRice.com he performs regularly as a member of the sketch comedy group The Dan Ryan.