Tad Richards Publications

PUBLICATIONS:

Fiction:

Title	Author Credit	Pub. Data	Information
The Golden Fleece	William Shears	Dell, 1969	Sex comedy. Not likely you'll find this one anywhere, although after I put this site up, I did hear from a couple of college students who told me that the William Shears novels had a cult following. They actually are pretty funny. My editor at Dell was Bob Abel, originally my editor at The Realist, and one of the great men in his field. Bob signed up The Golden Fleece when I was unemployed and desperate, then went over the manuscript with a deft red pencil. It may have been soft-core paperback throwaway, but Bob took it as seriously as a great editor takes any manuscript that comes over his desk. His notes -- make this funnier -- sharper dialogue here -- why would he do this? -- overwitten -- underwritten -- this doesn't follow -- were a blueprint for professionalism, and rewriting the manuscript from Bob's notes was the best writing course I ever took. The Golden Fleece was on Dell's best seller list that summer, right under Mary, Queen of Scots by Antonia Fraser.
Up All the Way	William Shears	Dell, 1970	The second in series that was destined never to go any further. I actually wrote a third, called Ward Bobb Goes Women's Lib. where with Bob's encouragement, I took it more into Realist-type satire, but then Bob left Dell, the book never came out, and somewhere along the line I lost the manuscript.
Cherokee Bill	Tad Richards Jonathan F. Richards	Dell, 1974	I wrote this with my brother, and it was a move into the mainstream. It's a historical novel based on real-life characters--the outlaw Cherokee Bill, lawyer J. Warren Reed, and "Hanging Judge" Isaac Parker of the Federal Court in Fort Smith, Arkansas. It was optioned for a movie by Hecther Ubarry (Crocodile Dundee 2). It begins with an evocation of a very strange time -- the beginning of the creation of the legend of the Wild West, at a time when the reality was less than a decade old. Jon and I became fascinated as our research into these legendary figures and this legendary time showed us more and more that these were real people, living in a real America. Judge Parker's gallows built for twelve on the main street of Fort Smith, Arkansas (the inspiration for Clint Eastwood's Hang 'em High, among other stories) was not much admired by the city fathers of Fort Smith, who would have preferred that their hometown be known for its modern sewage system.
Blazing Saddles	Tad Richards	Warner Paperback Library, 1975	A novelization of the Mel Brooks movie. I wrote this for Bob Abel at WPL, who asked me for something that would work as a book. It would need to be a little longer that the screenplay, in order to fill out the requisite number of pages for even a skinny book, and it would have to make the movie's sight gags work in prose. So I went to work on it with that in mind, but it turned out that WPL had an unusual deal with Brooks, where he got final approval over the novelization, and he did not like the changes I had made. "Doesn't this guy realize," he said, "that this screenplay is in the great comic tradition of Chaplin and Keaton and 'The Procucers.'" We had a meeting of about half an hour, during which he called me by name at least 40 times, either to show me what a regular guy he was, or to make sure he remembered it. Anyway, the message was simple enough. Take out everything I had put in, and just put transitions in between the dialog units. Literary equivalents of the sight gags? Forget it. Just describe the sight gags. They even held a special screening of the movie for me, so I could take notes on gags that hadn't made it into the shooting script, and make sure the novelization didn't miss one golden moment.
Park Avenue Executioner	David Wilson	Award Books, 1975	This one was kind of a throwaway -- a novelization of a McCloud movie-for-TV. But one of those little commercial-fiction stories: Working from the TV script, I novelized a scene early on where McCloud teaches the heroine how to drink tequila, with the salt and the lime and all. Then later on, there's a crucial-to-the-plot scene where McCloud is under house arrest in his hotel, because his unorthodox investigative techniques are threatening to cause a war with Mexico. He manages to escape by pretending to get drunk (actually, he's feeding the booze to the potted plants. His pal Brockhurst, who's guarding him, gets him back up to his room, and dumps him, snoring, on his bed. He returns to the two young ladies with whom they've been drinking, chuckling over the incident, when he recalls -- "My God, I just remembered--McCloud doesn't drink!" He races back up to the room, but McCloud has already escaped to save the girl and catch the bad guys. But what about the tequila scene earlier? This may have satisfied the NBC continuity department, but it didn't satisfy me. So I changed the line to "My God, I just remembered--McCloud can really hold his liq uor!"
The Killing Place	Tad Richards	Dell, 1976	This has been optioned for the screen several times, most notably by Howard Hawks in 1976 and as a vehicle for Raul Julia in 1992, but it never quite happened. It's a suspense novel set in the Appalachian mountains, in which a young federal marshall is forced to reconnect with the roots he thinks he has left behind.
Mistress of the Western Wind	Jessica Richards	Jove, 1978	Historical romance about the clipper ship era, which made use of a lot of research on the real roles women played in what's generally believed to have been exclusively a man's world.
A Generation Apart	J. T. Richards	Jove, 1980	Written with my brother. The first volume of a trilogy about the early days of the American labor movement, from the Civil War through the 1870s. My father thought this was the best book I ever wrote. It begins the story of three generations of Americans whose lives are shaped by the economic struggles of the 19th and early 20th centuries. John Whitmarsh is a remittance man, the younger son of British lord, who comes to America to fight in the civil war, marries into a Pennsylvania coal mining family, and becomes a crusading small town journalist. Historical figures his path crosses include coal baron Franklin Gowen, Pinkerton agent James McParlan, and the so-called Molly Maguire conspirators.
A Generation Aflame	J. T. Richards	Jove, 1981	The second volume of the labor trilogy, covering the last two decades of the 19th century.
The Firebrands	J. T. Richards	Jove, 1982	The third volume of the labor trilogy, covering the first two decades of the 20th century.
Tempest of Tombstone	Lee Davis Willoughby	Dell, 1982	Historical novel about Wyatt Earp and the woman behind the gunfight at the OK Corral.
To Soar With Eagles	Richard Hale Curtis	Dell, 1982	The first in a series of novels about the development of flight and the aircraft industry.
Depths of Danger	Halsey Clark	Dell, 1983	The submarine service in the South Pacific during World War II
Through Clouds of Flame	Richard Hale Curtis	Dell, 1983	A family involved in the aircraft industry during World War II.
The Canadians	Lee Davis Willoughby	Dell, 1983	A young woman gets involved with Louis Riel and the Red River Uprising in the 1860s.
The Brain of Agent Blue	Tad Richards and Steven Vorillas	Dell, 1984	The memory cells of dead spy are injected into the brain of a living CIA agent, with terrifying results.
The Virgil Directive	Tad Richards	Dell, 1984	A young American goes over to Marseilles in 1939 to help artists and intellectuals escape from the Nazis.

Nonfiction

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Title	Author Credit	Pub. Data	Information
Great Goalies	Tad Richards	Tempo, 1976	Sports book -- four hockey goalies.
Struggle and Lose, Struggle and Win: The Story of the United Mine Workers	Elizabeth Levy and Tad Richards	Four Winds, 1977	Included in the New York Times of best teenage books of 1977.
Dolly Parton	Otis James	Quick Fox, 1978 Jove reprint, 1979	-
Wall Street Trivia	Douglas Grunther and Tad Richards	Getchell Press, 1986	A novelization of the Mel Brooks movie.
The New Country Music Encyclopedia	Tad Richards and Melvin B. Shestack)	Simon and Schuster, 1993	The best and most complete guide to the country music scene in one of its golden eras, the late 80s and early 90s
A Penny Saved	Neale S. Godfrey with Tad Richards	Simon and Schuster, 1995	Advice on bringing up financially and socially responsible children. It made the NY Times business, Washington Post, and USA Today best seller lists.
From Cradle To College	Neale S. Godfrey with Tad Richards	HarperCollins, 1996	A complete guide to the financial business of having and raising a child.
Making Change	Neale S. Godfrey with Tad Richards	Simon And Schuster, 1997	New ways for women to approach financial and personal empowerment.
Mom, Inc.	Neale S. Godfrey with Tad Richards	Simon And Schuster, 1999	Moving back and forth between the office and the kitchen.
Money Still Doesn’t Grow on Trees	Neale S. Godfrey with Tad Richards	Rodale Press, 2004	Facts of financial life for teenagers.
The Teen Code	Rhett Z. Godfrey	Rodale Press, 2004	Uncredited co-author. A teenager's guide to talkung to your teen..

Poetry

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Title	Author Credit	Pub. Data	Information
The Gravel Business	Tad Richards	Ye Olde Font Shoppe Press,1995	-
The Map of the Bear	Tad Richards	Ye Olde Font Shoppe Press, 1995	-
My Night With the Language Thieves	Tad Richards	Ye Olde Font Shoppe Press, 1999	-
Situations	Tad Richards	Ye Olde Font Shoppe Press, 2001	A modern-day epic.

Anthologies, Encyclopedias

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Title	Author Credit	Pub. Data	Information
Sweet Nothings	edited by Jim Elledge	University of Indiana Press, 1994	Poetry about rock and roll.
Chick for a Day	edited by Fiona Giles	Simon and Schuster, 1999	Sex-change poems
The St. James Encyclopedia of Popular Culture	-	St. James Press, 2000	Entries on jazz, rhythm and blues, country music, Kansas City jazz, and New Orleans rhythm and blues, as well as numerous entries on individual artists.
The Cancer Poetry Project	edited by Karin B. Miller	Fairview Press, 2001