Luanne Rice (edit name/settings)

Luanne Rice is the New York Times bestselling author of who has inspired the devotion of readers everywhere with her moving novels. She has been hailed by critics for her unique gifts, which have been described as “a beautiful blend of love and humor, with a little bit of magic thrown in,”* and “a rare combination of realism and romance.”**
The author of twenty-eight novels, Luanne Rice often writes about nature and the sea, and many of her novels deal with love and family. Born in New Britain, Connecticut, Rice is the eldest of three daughters of an Irish Catholic family. Her mother taught English in middle school and her father was a typewriter salesman.
Rice’s first published poem appeared in The Hartford Courant when she was eleven, her first short story in American Girl Magazine when she was fifteen. She studied Art History at Connecticut College but dropped out when her father became ill. She continued to write, working to support herself as a maid in Newport, Rhode Island, a researcher at the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, D.C., and a whale researcher and deckhand in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. She began to publish short stories in literary magazines such as Ascent and the Massachusetts Review. Her debut novel, Angels All Over Town, was published in 1985.
Rice’s work has been translated into twenty-four languages. Her short stories, essays, and articles have been published in many magazines and newspapers. A Kiss After Dying, Rice’s account of a Connecticut murder trial very personal to her family, kicked off Glamour’s series of true crime pieces. She covered several trials, including the retrial of Claus Von Bulow.
A passionate environmentalist, Rice has written essays on beaches, oceans, migratory birds, owls, and offshore drilling. At nineteen she studied with the Sea Education Association and sailed aboard their 100’ staysail schooner, Westward, through the Bahamas and Caribbean tracking Humpback whales along their migratory path.
In 2006 she traveled with the Natural Resources Defense Council to Laguna San Ignacio, midway down the Baja Peninsula, a birthing ground for gray whales, to celebrate the NRDC’s having saved the pristine and critical habitat from development.
Rice became involved with a legal clinic at Georgetown University Law Center, and is deeply committed to helping women who have been victims of domestic violence, encouraging education about the fact it doesn’t have to be physical to be devastating. Psychological and emotional abuse leaves deep scars. Several of her novels, including Stone Heart, Summer’s Child, and Summer of Roses deal with this issue and are included on reading lists for domestic violence sites.
In 2002, Connecticut College awarded Rice an honorary degree, Bachelor of Humane Letters, and invited her to donate her papers to the college’s Special Collections Library where they are now held in the Luanne Rice Collection. Rice is known for giving impromptu summer writing workshops to children at the seaside community where she grew up: partly in homage to her mother, who did the same for Rice and her sisters, and partly to pass along her love of observation, thinking like a writer, and writing every day.
She lived in Paris for two years; her life there, including frequent trips throughout France and Europe, inspired such novels about American expatriates in European settings as Sandcastles, What Matters Most, Secrets of Paris, Light of the Moon and The Deep Blue Sea for Beginners.Her travels to Ireland, home of her ancestors, have inspired several novels including the forthcomingThe Silver Boat.

Several of Rice’s novels have been adapted for television, including Crazy in Love for TNT, Blue Moon for CBS, Follow the Stars Home and Silver Bells for the Hallmark Hall of Fame, and Beach Girls for a summer 2005 mini-series on Lifetime. They have starred such amazing actors as Holly Hunter, Bill Pullman, Frances McDormand, Gena Rowlands, Blair Brown, Campbell Scott, Kimberly Williams-Paisley, Rob Lowe, Julia Ormond, Anne Heche, Tate Donovan, Kim Hunter, Richard Kiley, and Sharon Lawrence.
Her monologue, My Almost Family, is part of the play Motherhood Out Loud, and was performed at Hartford Stage by Amy Irving, February 2010.
Rice divides her time between New York City and Old Lyme, Connecticut., in the house where she spent all her childhood summers. She travels with her three cats, each of whom has a mysterious, enchanting story filled with elegy and pathos.