Rick Riordan (born Richard Russell Riordan Junior) is an American, award-winning author of mysteries for adults. A former teacher, he is best known for his hugely popular Percy Jackson and the Olympians book series, which blends Greek mythology with modern-day characters and settings.
Born and raised in San Antonio, Texas, Rick Riordan started writing as a young adult. He wrote short stories and edited his high school newspaper.
"I wrote a lot of short stories when I was young, and even sent a few in (to get rejected). My very first rejection note was from Isaac Asimov Science Fiction Magazine in 1978," says Riordan.
Rick Riordan graduated from the University of Texas at Austin with bachelor’s degrees in history and English. He then received his teacher’s certification from the University of Texas at San Antonio. After teaching middle school in Texas and California for about 15 years, Riordan quit to dedicate himself to writing full-time.
His first published book was Big Red Tequila which became the first novel in Rick Riordan's series Tres Navarre. It is a fast-paced crime story about an unusually talented and flawed hero, Jackson "Tres" Navarre, who works as an unlicensed private investigator, and also is a tai chi master.
"I finished the manuscript for Big Red Tequila just before my thirtieth birthday, June 1994. It was published in June 1997. So from the first query letter to the pub date took three years," says the author.
The novel won the Anthony Award for best original paperback and the Shamus Award for Best First Private Investigator novel in the same year. Tres Navarre series has seven parts and the final installment, Rebel Island, appeared in 2007.
His massive success was The Lightning Thief (2005), the first novel in the five-volume Percy Jackson and the Olympians series, which placed a group of modern-day adolescents in a Greco-Roman mythological setting. Since then, Riordan has written several series and dozen novels. His most recent book is the Daughter of the Deep, published in 2021.
Riordan's books have been translated into forty-two languages and sold more than thirty million copies only in the US.
In 2022, Riordan co-wrote the pilot for the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series on Disney+ and is the executive producer for the show.
The channel has yet to announce a release date for the movie, and production on the TV show is still in the early stages. It will probably happen in the summer of 2023. The first season of Percy Jackson and the Olympians will contain eight episodes, according to Riordan.
Photo credit: rickriordan.com
