Why do you write the genre that you write?
I write all sorts of crime fiction, from YA to historical to humorous to noir. I’d say I’m fascinated by the subject of crime because it was part of my childhood. My father was involved in illegal gambling, the numbers racket, and my neighborhood in Brooklyn was filled with violence and gang warfare. So you can say it’s familiar territory.

What’s the quirkiest quirk one of your characters has?
The hitman character, Roachkiller, who appears in two of my stories, most recently one in Noiryorican, tends to refer to himself in third person. “She give Roachkiller a hug like Roachkiller never did nothing wrong, like he just came back from a week at camp.” It’s fun to write because it makes him really come alive in my brain.

How did you come up with your pseudonym?
I wrote my first crime stories under the vastly different nom de plume “R. Narvaez.” I thought it sounded mysterious and I thought “Richie” sounded too much like a mechanic’s name—you know, “Talk to my guy Richie at the garage and he’ll hook you up”—and not an author’s. But Patricia King convinced me otherwise, told me to get over it, so I started using my full, real name.

Tell us how you got into writing?
When he was in sixth grade, my older brother starting writing Scooby-Doo pastiches and getting extra credit in school and lots of praise at home, and me, two grades behind him, I thought, “Well, duh, I can do that!” So I tried my hand and came up with my own stories, and pretty soon I fell in love with writing as an art form. It possessed me, if you will. It’s nice when you can find your demon early in life.

What jobs have you held before, during and/or after you became a writer?
The usual variety of career paths taken by a callow literary youth: foot messenger, house painter, magazine writer, IT tech, bartender, advertising copywriter. But I did not drive ambulances during the war.

Where do you write?
My best writing happens in the shower. Sadly, however, that is not where I type. That is at my desk, but I also scribble while commuting.

What is your favorite deadline snack?
Pretzels mixed with plantain chips!

What is next for you?
I have a story just out in the online sci fi magazine Orion’s Belt, and I have stories coming out later this year in Witnesses for the Dead, edited by Gary Phillips and Gar Anthony Haywood, and in the Bouchercon anthology Land of 10,000 Thrills. I have books in the works as well, but nothing I can talk about now.

What are you reading now?
In summer I try to reread books I enjoyed when I was younger, to see if I can find something new in them. At my bedside I’m reading Kindred by Octavia E. Butler, and it’s just as brilliant as I remember but somehow even scarier today. On my commute I’m reading Ruth Rendell’s The Fallen Curtain collection, and every story is an education in suspense.

Where can we find you?
I tend to haunt the halls of Instagram pretty regularly, @rnz1000. You can also find me wasting time daily on le Twitter, @richie_narvaez. And of course there’s my website, richienarvaez.com.

Now to have some fun . . .

Vanilla or chocolate
Vanilla, although I wouldn’t refuse pistachio.

Ice cream or cake
Cake! Are you saying you have some? What kind? Ice cream cake! See what I did there? Does it have the crunchies?

Broccoli or squash
Broccoli. I’m a sucker for riboflavin and folate.

Pizza, burgers, or pasta
Cheeseburger deluxe, medium, extra pickles, please, may I have your coleslaw if you’re not having it?

Breakfast, lunch, or dinner
You’re making me hungry with these questions. Dinner! More variety, and I can still eat pancakes if I wanted to.

Mountain or beach
Beach, because it seems less potentially lethal. I mean, I can swim to safety, but falling ten thousand feet
to safety not so much.

City or country
I’ve tar in my veins, concrete in my bones, and the rattle of subway trains in my dreams. So, um, City.

Introvert or extrovert
Introvert before Happy Hour.

And even more fun . . .

You are stranded on a deserted island. What are your three must-haves?
Number one: A fueled speedboat. But if I had to be stuck there, then a knife, sunscreen, and really good wifi.

My bio:
Richie Narvaez is the author of the award-winning collection Roachkiller and Other Stories and the gentrification thriller Hipster Death Rattle. His most recent novel is the historical YA mystery Holly Hernandez and the Death of Disco, which won an Agatha and an Anthony award, and his latest book is the anthology Noiryorican.