Rick Treon | Updates

Rick to present at New Frontiers in Writing

Rick Treon — Sun, 5 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000

At the second annual New Frontiers in Writing Conference in Amarillo, Texas, award-winning and international bestselling author Rick Treon will present his workshop The Art of Pacing: How to write a page-turner

About the workshop
One of the highest compliments any author can receive—in any genre—goes something like this: “I could not put down your book!” There are a few techniques that will keep readers on the hook for hundreds of pages, and in this course we’ll look at these from a macro (story) and micro (line) perspective. By the end, you’ll have a firm grasp of the art (and the science) of writing page-turning prose!

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BOOK REVIEW: The Favorites by Layne Fargo

Rick Treon — Sun, 05 Jul 2026 16:48:07 -0400

Sometimes it feels as though a novel was written just for you. Not just a story in your genre. Not just a book that has the tropes you’re into. Not just something by one of your favorite writers.

No, I’m talking about a book that ticks so many of your literary boxes it feels like the author checked in with you before they were done revising.

I was reminded of this phenomenon while reading The Favorites by Layne Fargo, a contemporary retelling of Wuthering Heights set in the world of elite couples figure skating. It focuses on Heathcliff and Catherine Ernshaw, reimagined in the modern era as Heath Rocha and Katarina Shaw (watch this Instagram Reel for more fun Wuthering Heights name play).

Layne is absolutely one of my favorite authors (I’m privileged to have met her and to be in the same International Thriller Writers debut class). She normally writes novels more squarely in the thriller genre—if you haven’t read Temper or They Never Learn, I recommend rectifying that situation soon—but The Favorites is listed as women’s fiction.

After reading it, I would list it a bit more broadly, though that doesn’t give us an exact label. Publishers Marketplace called it her first work of women’s fiction while labeling it “general/other.” Many call this “commercial fiction,” which is a funny label to me since every novel sold in a bookstore is fiction that is being printed to engage in commerce.

But I get what they mean.

There’s the more amorphous “upmarket fiction,” which I have been known to use. That’s a book with a plot but that’s also written so well it’ll appeal to those who only read literary-grade fiction.

The more colloquial term for upmarket fiction is “book club fiction,” which is what I have settled on for The Favorites. This may be because it was not just chosen to be printed by Book of the Month (which categorized the novel as “contemporary fiction”) and nominated for its yearly Lolly Award—along with shortlists for the Audie Award for best audiobook and Goodreads Choice Awards for Best Romance.

So, we’ve established that The Favorites is not in my usual genre. Then how was it written for me so specifically?

First, the novel is about sports. Many of you know—but some may not—that I began my writing career covering sports for daily newspapers. I never wrote about figure skating, but prose about elite competition is absolutely in my wheelhouse.

Go back farther, and you’ll find that I was a jock in middle and high school. No shock there. But even fewer of you will know that my father and I were both elite athletes in one of the most traditional of Olympic sports: archery.

Though neither of us competed during a summer Olympiad, he held the world indoor archery record for a brief moment in time, and I won a youth national championship.

So, a novel about training for and competing at the Olympics. Check.

The novel is also slightly epistolary in nature. Told primarily in first person by Kat, there are epistolic interstitials in The Favorites, transcribed scenes from a documentary about Heath and Kat (itself named, you guessed it, The Favorites).

I love novels with a little epistolary flare. I have written novels with epistolic interstitials. I enjoy the form and the layers of tension they create.

Which brings me to the last point I’ll make about why this book fell so squarely in my wheelhouse: It was, in fact, a novel of suspense.

In much the way Where The Crawdads Sing was secretly a courtroom murder mystery, The Favorites is a suspenseful novel that is always asking: What terrible events befell Heath and Kat that led to the need for a huge docuseries, anyway?

And, as she has with her other more direct suspense and thriller novels, Layne Fargo delivers on her promises. There are twists—though, as a retelling, those familiar with Emily Brontë’s original text will know many coming—subterfuge, and several wonderful character studies.

I only have one small negative thing to say about the novel, and it can be said about many: There was a section in the second act that felt like it drug down the pace a bit too much.

There was a ton of fun during this fun-and-games portion, but at one point it veered a little too off course, in my opinion, and turned the middle a little saggy. Not for long, and not in a way that ruined anything for me. Just something that my editor brain feels could have been lifted out and not impacted anything.

But that’s really it. I enjoyed the story, the structure, the writing, and the payoffs. The ending was satisfying.

In reading the author/editorial blurbs, there were naturally some comparisons. This is the language that many in my industries use as shorthand, so I’ve become accustomed to using it for all types of entertainment.

THE Jodi Picoult says The Favorites is “Part Wuthering Heights and part Daisy Jones & The Six,” and an NPR review says “Think The Cutting Edge meets Daisy Jones & The Six.”

Obviously it’s Wuthering Heights, and I love DJ6, which totally nails the structure and volatile relationship between the two leads. I hadn’t heard of the movie The Cutting Edge, and I get that comp, though a rom-com is not the vibe I would use.

After finishing The Favorites, my first thought was Wuthering Heights meets I, Tonya—which even has it’s own documentary-style cut-ins, albeit just talking-head interviews. You’ve also got a woman from the rural Midwest trying to compete in this glitzy world of privilege, and a troubled home life and domestic relationship, though a very different kind of trouble than Heath and Kat spiral into.

A Deadline article said they’re looking to make this into a TV show, which makes perfect sense. And, though Layne was adamant there was no sequel, she has announced another related novel, The Ice Queens, is scheduled for a 2027 release.

After reading and loving The Favorites, count me the eff in!

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The continuing audio Odyssey of Bartholomew Beck

Rick Treon — Mon, 9 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Plus my archive is now (mostly) free, and what you can expect from me next!

I’ll avoid burying the lede and start with the bad news: My Bartholomew Beck thrillers—Live With the Truth, Let the Guilty Pay, and The Price of Silence—will not be getting turned into audiobooks by Everand (a subsidiary of Scribd), as previously announced.

The audio rights for those titles were officially sold almost exactly a year ago today, with the hope that I’d have links to share with you by late summer.

But then Everand bought bookish startup Fable and appears to have stopped producing their own audio.

However, there are several pieces of good news.

First, my publisher Fawkes Press and I each received our payments for the rights sale. It didn’t change my life, but it paid some bills!

Second, Everand released the rights earlier than they needed to, which means my amazing subrights agent Amy Brewer at Metamorphosis Literary can get back to work.

Which leads to some good news that many of you probably know but some may not: Those audio rights can be sold again! That means another payday and another shot at having some incredible folks bring Beck and the rest of the cast to life.

This is how it works with all subsidiary rights. I know many authors who’ve earned a nice chuck of change having their rights sold over and over but never produced, or never released.

Now, as an artist, you hate to see an adaptation of your work fall through.

But as someone who is forced to operate in our current capitalist hellscape, you love to see the opportunity to have the same work earn money more than once!

Most of my previous Substack entries are now free to read!
Speaking of money and capitalism, when I started this Substack, I didn’t have a big plan for it. I still don’t have a big plan, but I am starting to formulate one.

So, upon researching the features, I realized that I had basically left the then-default setting of putting all of my previous newsletters behind the paywall after a fairly short amount of time.

But that was only really supposed to happen for the fiction and a few other entries with more personal or not-for-the-general-public information.

That situation has been remedied, so now only things that anyone can now read posts on the Substack website and app unless they were originally meant for paid subscribers!

Treoning it is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Coming soon
First up will be a book review for The Favorites by Layne Fargo! I will try to keep it mostly spoiler free, though some of what happens is already known since it’s a loose literary retelling. (My opinion on the books I read will always be free here.)

After that, paid subscribers will get a case study in a major film—Universal Pictures’ HIM—going from a spec script (written on speculation that someone may hopefully one day buy it, like all of my scripts so far) to a major studio movie.

I’m doing this because I have some unique perspectives to share.

A good while back, I was given access by a lit manager to The Black List—the real collection of the best Hollywood scripts not yet produced, not the pay-to-play website that has spawned from it—where I read the spec script not yet titled HIM. I dug it and was hoping it would eventually get made.

About a year later, I was brought on to work as a featured background actor in the movie, which was filmed primarily in New Mexico and produced by master horror filmmaker Jordan Peele’s company, Monkeypaw Productions.

Then, about another year later, the film released and was not well-received. I waited until it was streaming to watch it, despite it being just my second theatrical release. I was nowhere on camera that I can really tell (though I’m going to scrub it again just in case), and it turns out I’m okay with that.

So now I get to sit down with that script and see how much of it made it to screen and how much was changed by the grinding gears of a major Hollywood studio, while analyzing it from my three perspectives—writerly reader, readerly actor, and actorly reviewer.

What I’m reading
Right now I’m in the middle of Sour by Shae Smith!

I first heard about this book from talking with Shae during my live interviews on TikTok (which, now that we know the social app isn’t going away, I will try to get on more). I loved the concept so much that I invested in her Kickstarter!

Life took some crazy turns—the big ticket items have been documented on this Substack—but now I’m reading and enjoying!

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2026 resolutions

Rick Treon — Fri, 2 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Plus what I'm reading, and is DIVIDED STATES a New Year's novel?

Welcome to 2026! I’m more excited this January than I have been in quite some time. Exciting plans are coming together in my personal and professional lives, so these next 365 days should be some of the best ever.

I’m not usually big on New Year’s resolutions, but I suppose I usually just call them goals. And in a lot of ways, I postpone the beginning of my year until after my birthday later this month (I’m turning 40).

A nice, understandable reason to procrastinate, if I do say so myself.

But since my creative fire has been lit a few weeks early, here is a list.

In 2026, I am resolved:
https://ricktreon.substack.com/p/2026-resolutions

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