Richard J Schneider is a long-time Denver writer, winning numerous awards for his journalism, script writing and media production. He reported and wrote for United Press International and the Rocky Mountain News and is a former Professional Journalism Fellow at Stanford University in energy affairs. He served as the initial public information officer for the Colorado Office of Energy Conservation before co-founding Source Interactive, a Colorado firm that pioneered the development of interactive media systems for training, education, communication, and voting. The firm rebranded as Source Media Arts. That same long-running partnership provided creative services and communications consulting to many corporate and government clients.
Richard has written and created hundreds of short stories, essays, newspaper columns, articles, brochures, scripts, white papers, novels, training and education programs, and multi-media presentations. An admitted policy wonk, he has a BA in Political Science from Chicago’s DePaul University, a certificate in energy policy from Stanford University’s Professional Journalism Fellowship Program, and more than 30 hours of graduate study in Political Theory, International Affair, and American Government at the University of Colorado at Denver. He holds an Amateur Radio Extra Class license (recessive nerd gene) and often combines “ham radio” with outings in parks, travel, hiking, and camping. His other interests include photography, bicycling, and sailing. A Chicagoland native, Richard has made Denver, Colorado, his home since 1969. He has three sons, one daughter and five grand-children.
Over the years, Richard has studied and practiced the short story form. However, his participation in master writing classes with James Michener, Kurt Vonnegut and John Irving spurred his desire to write novels. An interest in mysteries and his background in journalism drew him to the mystery genre as a fiction writer. Who Killed Porkchop? began as an exercise in developing a longer fictional narrative with more complex character development than short stories allow. It grew into a fun mystery novella worthy of sharing with mystery fans. Richard’s debut novel, WATER A Vic Bengston Investigation, a murder mystery set in Colorado, introduces the character Vic Bengston, a Baby Boomer who returns to his first love, investigative journalism, after working in the corporate world for a quarter century. In the second book in this popular series, VOTE A Vic Bengston Investigation, Vic unravels the suspicious death of a billionaire computer entrepreneur and uncovers a computer encryption secret sought by governments, businesses, politicians, terrorists, and criminals.