Adventure rarely arrives with a drumroll. More often, it starts as a nudge: a friend’s call to run a river, a small island display case holding a Spanish coin, a childhood memory that won’t let go. That is the thread that runs through our conversation with author and explorer Rick Glaze, who grew up in a small Tennessee town and learned that curiosity, not miles, powers adventure. Rick’s life bridges whitewater kayaking, sailing the Caribbean, and writing novels and songs that bring those worlds alive. He reminds us that the medium—pen, paddle, or guitar—is secondary to the spark you bring to it, and that spark can turn a local river into a story, a fear into a pivot, and a map into a myth.
Photos Courtesy of Rick Glaze
Rick’s path began with rivers: the Rogue in Oregon, the Salmon in Idaho, and the Grand Canyon’s big water. Kayaking taught him about risk, flow, and attention. He recalls the technical tightness of smaller rivers like the North Umpqua, where logs shift and rocks appear, and how “big water” buries obstacles while demanding respect. Those days on the water led to The Purple River, a novel that starts at the headwaters and ends at takeout, weaving flash floods, romance, and even the cultural currents of red and blue into a single channel. The book’s rapids borrow from different rivers and real conversations, showing how lived moments become narrative scenes. A key insight surfaces here: fiction often requires slowing time, stretching a single rapid into a full chapter so readers feel every decision, every angle, and every cold surge of doubt.
Sailing then became the next tide. After a bracing moment of fear atop a long Rogue rapid, Rick shifted to the Caribbean, learned to sail on San Francisco Bay, and stumbled upon the lore of Spanish silver. A glass case on Saba Rock displayed a piece of eight; research opened shipwrecks, currents, and colonial commerce. Spanish Pieces of Eight was born: four siblings inherit a map instead of money, leapfrogging clues across islands familiar from Rick’s own passages. The sequel, Eight Pieces of Eight, moves the treasure north into Middle Tennessee’s vast limestone cave system—pitch-black, sprawling, and perfect for secrets. Bev Dahl, a young woman who can read a “magic” map, anchors this coming-of-age hunt, dodging greed and danger while discovering her grit. The seas and caves become more than settings; they are tests of character, and each clue is a narrative eddy that spins the story forward.
Music threads through every stage. Rick played bass in high school, wrote songs in Nashville, and pairs tracks with his books—The Purple River and Spanish Pieces of Eight each have their own musical echo. He explains how songwriting compresses a life into three verses and a chorus, while novels expand time and detail, letting characters breathe and change. He keeps a “hookbook” of phrases like Uncle Shorty, then co-writes until a life emerges from a title. That craft discipline mirrors his approach to fiction: collect sparks, work them into structure, and stay flexible enough to be surprised. Even Ralph and Murray—his humorous, award-noted novel of 1959 small-town life narrated by a dog and a cat—grew from a pandemic pivot and a desire to explore era, voice, and memory with warmth and wit.
Beneath the stories lies a candid look at creative work today. The hardest part isn’t just writing a page-turner; it’s getting found. With publishing accessible and feeds crowded, discoverability becomes its own river to run. Rick faces it like a rapid: test channels, learn social platforms, accept that currents shift, and keep moving. His advice to anyone holding a creative itch is blunt and kind: begin ugly. Your first novel won’t be your best, just as your first nine shows will shake. But the tenth performance feels different, and the second book can’t exist without the first. Take a class, join a workshop, write for yourself, and let the next draft run a cleaner line. Adventure, he says, is leaving the chair to see what’s new—on a river, in a cave, or on the blank page where curiosity finds its course.
