Biography. Reviews. Forthcoming God's Hacker.

 Biography

Author of Down in the River, Horses All Over Hell, and the forthcoming God's Hacker, Ryan is a graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop. He serves as fiction mentor for PEN America's Justice Writing Program. He has taught at Oregon State University, Boise State, and Ramapo College. Ryan was a Tennessee Williams Scholar at Sewanee Writers Conference, and a fiction reader at Tin House. His story collection, Horses All Over Hell, was a finalist for the Bakeless and the Hudson prizes. Ryan's books are discussed in Poets & Writers, Kirkus Review, Fiction Writers Review, Paste Magazine, Rain Taxi Review of Books, Canada's Miramichi Reader, and elsewhere. His stories appear in Antioch Review, Alaska Quarterly, Crab Orchard, Image, Other Voices, and Quick Fiction.

Inquiries about Ryan's books should be sent to: colorwheel22(at)icloud.com. 

Though Ryan's new author page was verified on 10/7/24, his name in the system was reconfigured to "Blackett," due to frequent searches with those letters, and search results using "Blacketter" are temporarily blocked. Author Central says this will correct itself eventually. Here is a link to the page: 

https://amazon.com/author/ryanblacketter    

Great Review in Canada's Miramichi Reader. 

"This book is classic American fiction influenced by Flannery O’Connor, Raymond Carver, and Breece D’J Pancake. Blacketter’s style confidently takes its own place alongside these works; the clear elegant writing, the careful revelation of character, the subtle and moving transformations are the type of experience one can only access in great fiction. This book is certainly that."

Drew Lavigne is "the Poet Laureate of Moncton, New Brunswick, a member of the editorial board at The Fiddlehead, and host of the Attic Owl reading series." 

https://miramichireader.ca/2024/09/throwback-horses-all-over-hell-by-ryan-blacketter/

Kirkus Review of Horses All Over Hell

"The author’s prose is as outstanding as the story it conveys, with spare, raw dialogue and deft scene-setting that is descriptive without feeling overwrought." 

--from Kirkus Review on Horses All Over Hell, June 15, 2023

https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/ryan-blacketter/horses-all-over-hell/

God's Hacker

Ryan’s novel God's Hacker is forthcoming from Sunbury Press in 2025. 

Here is the first blurb.

“I couldn’t put God’s Hacker down. Often it felt like On the Road, capturing swift movement and many characters in the American tapestry. The book is psychologically fraught, understated, and rewarding. By the title, I assumed it was an exposé of a Christian charlatan, but I was delighted to discover it’s about love, life, and hope. The writing is raw and evocative and it inspired me to write.” 

 --Jose Chaves, author of The Contract of Love

Poets & Writers Notice

In J.T. Bushnell's Poets & Writers article "The Thousand Pages," he reflects on something Ryan said years ago: that he threw away a thousand pages of his first book, Down in the River, before he was done.

Sign up to read Poets & Writers for free: 

https://www.pw.org/content/the_thousand_pages_tips_for_transitioning_to_the_novel

Rain Taxi Interview

Interview, "His Own Private Idaho," in Rain Taxi Review of Books. 

Interview 

The author of the short story collection Horse All Over Hell (Wipf and Stock, 2019) and the novel Down in the River (Wipf and Stock, 2019) talks about his work, inspirations, and characters.

 . . .

ASO’K: I’d like to ask about Horses All Over Hell, your short story collection released by Wipf and Stock in 2019.

It’s a book of related stories focused upon a family: mother, father, and two sons. You depict problems caused or affected by alcoholism, mental health issues, and religious fundamentalism. These are adult problems, viewed by Cory, a child, who is the elder son. He also does what he can to look after Matt, his younger brother. Why did you choose Cory as the central character?

RB: A child inhabits a compelling psychological world. To a kid, a dog might have the power to read minds. A horse on the side of the road might cast a judgmental glance. Cory’s young enough to live in that magic, but old enough to grasp the troubles of his family. He’s an ideal observer.   

ASO’K: The setting of Horses is rural Idaho in the early 1990s. Please forgive the cliché question, but may I ask how much of the setting and characters reflect your real-life experiences?

RB: The town of Laroy is, more or less, Lewiston, Idaho. My family lived there in the 70s and 80s. My dad was an alcoholic, but not the wild drunk that Marty is, and my mom was a very traditional, heterosexual Catholic woman who sat with the dying. My dad was an anxiety-ridden parole officer who didn’t talk much except to yell, though he was good-hearted. I was a sports kid and wore my team uniforms at home, watching TV always. My family was hyper-normal, patriotic and God-fearing without question. Once, I tried on my mom’s bra as a joke, and my older brother screamed in fear and tackled me. My mom shouted, “Ryan, this is a Christian household!” My dad was at work. Naturally, I wouldn’t have tried that stunt if he'd been at home.

Ryan's NY Observer Essays (and a few others)--Republished in Arts & Letters Daily and Elsewhere.

Milo essay in the NY Observer: “I support anyone's right to speak and publish. But my own feeling is that Milo was often thin stuff—he was one-dimensional, neglecting to locate any other personality trait that might mitigate his constant judgments about people on the left . . . His rhetoric was absent goodwill that might truly persuade, and therefore he lacked complexity and depth on the stage. In short, too much stupidity issued from his pretty mouth.”

Catcher in the Rye essay in the NY Observer. "In fact, Holden’s criticism earns all the more trust because it’s deeply personal. Though he’s a child of a corporate lawyer, he never speaks in unison with his class. He has every privilege—and insists on wearing ties and fitting in—but risks his position by his behaviors . . . He’s no beatnik or bohemian, though he’s met with those and has neglected to emulate them. He articulates his own ideas, unafraid to stand alone—an exemplar to millions throughout the world."

Recommendations from PEN American Justice Writing

PEN managers Robbie, Jess, and Caits

Jess Abolafia: "Ryan approaches mentorship from an unbiased perspective, accepting varied opinions and cultivating a safe space for incarcerated writers to freely express their thoughts and goals for their writing journeys." 

Robbie Pollock: "Ryan's commitment to providing tailored resources for each individual reflects a genuine interest in fostering creative growth within a challenging environment." 

Reviews, etc., of Horses All Over Hell and Down in the River

Interviews and Reviews

Pittsburgh's City Paper "Arts Feature" Interview:
https://www.pghcitypaper.com/pittsburgh/cp-catches-up-with-newly-arrived-novelist-ryan-blacketter/Content?oid=1851057


Paste Magazine's interview with Ryan Blacketter: "The human story is a fairly dark one with painful and dangerous impulses that we all have. And that's coupled with a fortress-like psychology that most people have, protecting them from the awareness of the fact that they are part of this human experience." https://www.pastemagazine.com/books/drinks-with/drinks-with-author-ryan-blacketter/



Fiction Writers Review: "What makes this novel so warm and heartbreaking despite its gruesome material is that all the characters are driven by their love and concern for each other." Click here to read the entire review: 

https://fictionwritersreview.com/review/down-in-the-river-by-ryan-blacketter/


The Rumpus: "[Down in the River] casts us deep into a haunting, crystalline forest of ice-lit trees, broken streetlamps . . . a place where a kind of inner wilderness has crept back through the city, where the lights of passing trains, the reflections of windows and the 'cry of night birds' appear intermittently like forms of meaningless chaos or secret signs." https://therumpus.net/2014/11/down-in-the-river-by-ryan-blacketter/ 

Largehearted Boy. Presented here is the narrated playlist for Down in the River. 

http://www.largeheartedboy.com/blog/archive/2014/02/book_notes_ryan_5.html

Quivering Pen Review:
http://davidabramsbooks.blogspot.com/2014/10/slipping-into-skin-down-in-river-by.html

Horses All Over Hell playlist at Largehearted Boy.
http://www.largeheartedboy.com/blog/archive/2019/07/ryan_blacketter.html

Kirkus Review of Horses All Over Hell, 2023

"Told through stirring vignettes, the stories gathered here follow a family in rural Idaho as they approach emotional implosion. Cory and his brother, Matt, are at a loss when it comes to their mother, Joanna, especially since she became a born-again Christian. Cory does not understand why Joanna seems sad all the time, and the boys often try to avoid her attempts to read the Bible to them. Alternatively, the boys adore their father, Marty, who likes to crack jokes as often as he cracks open cans of beer, and they often turn to him for fun and approval. Marty leaves town (going first to Las Vegas and later to the town of Red Star, and Joanna’s friendship with an Indigenous woman named Lucy sparks rumors about 'perversion' among their town’s religious crowd. Later, Joanna and the boys drive to Red Star to move there with Marty, who, much to everyone’s surprise, has been living with an older woman named Carla. The author’s prose is as outstanding as the story it conveys, with spare, raw dialogue and deft scene-setting that is descriptive without feeling overwrought. As Marty, Cory, and Matt look at their home with Joanna inside, Blacketter writes, 'The clouds moved fast with her lying under them, and the oak scraped its branches on the roof, and bits of flying ice tapped their bedroom window. As if the day itself disapproved that she was in bed, and gathered new anger in the thickening sleet.' The titular story reads almost like a play reaching its gripping climax: Tension rolls off of each character as Joanna attempts to leave while Cory tries to stop her, Marty pleads with Joanna, and Carla and Lucy bear witness with their own romantic intentions simmering beneath the surface of the familial drama. Each character feels real and lived-in; the stories are poignant, evocative, and definitely worth the reader’s attention. An excellent and moving collection."

https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/ryan-blacketter/horses-all-over-hell/

  

“Horses All Over Hell is a heartbreaking new book from a master of modern American fiction.”
—Ernest Hilbert, author of Last One Out, book critic for Wall Street Journal. Dust jacket blurb.

“The eleven intricately woven short stories of Horses All Over Hell portray a family caught in an ever-deepening spiral of damage and despair while bound together by ties of love in a Western landscape that comes to life on the page. The deep flaws, the beauty, and the bravery of these richly imagined characters will linger with the reader long after the last page.”
—Mary Clearman Blew, author of Jackalope Dreams and Ruby Dreams of Janis Joplin

" Moving yet realistic and unsentimental, this is a finely crafted collection of short fiction."
--Arthur O'Keefe, author of The Spirit Phone

“A heartbreaking, macabre pilgrimage.” 

–Paste Magazine

“Even as Lyle runs toward trouble and danger, his youthful optimism, however delusory it might be, flickers in these pages, compelling the reader to journey deeper into night, in search of hope and redemption.” 

--The Rumpus

“Lyle is clearly disturbed, but Blacketter never lets him become a caricature, never lets his mental illness cloud his personality or override his humanity. Like Dubus’s characters, even his most terrible deeds are driven by noble impulses and understandable grief.” 

--Fiction Writers Review

“Ryan Blacketter's Down in the River is an impressive debut novel that effectively tackles themes of mental illness and grief.” 

--Largehearted Boy

"A remarkable, darkly startling and endearing debut novel . . . As Lyle’s quest unfolds with messy inevitability, I am rooting for this young man, I am living as this young man, I am learning to feel as skewed and caring as Lyle does. And what a pleasure this is, and what great inspiration to a fellow writer the experience of Down in the River is. I cannot recommend this novel enough." 

--The Quivering Pen

"A strange, haunting journey across the shadowy landscape of grief and longing. To our good fortune, Ryan Blacketter is a heroic guide into this exploration of the mysterious workings of the human heart . . . This is a brave first novel from a writer to be watched." 

--Mitch Wieland, author of God's Dogs

"I can't remember when I've liked a character as much as I like young Lyle Rettew, or when I've cheered one on so hard, despite the fact that he's clearly crazy and his quest is doomed." 

--Pinckney Benedict, author of Miracle Boy and Other Stories 

"Blacketter's prose is paired with the torque of a plot that lives and moves like an indomitable engine. This difficult and necessary story is inbreathed with a ferocity that leaves the reader shaken." 

--Shann Ray, author of American Masculine

"I was completely enthralled by this haunting, page-turning novel. The disturbing events, the evocative landscape, and the chaos of mental disorder self-medicated by drugs and rebellion are all rendered in humanizing, beautifully-rendered realism."
--Wayne Harrison, The Spark and the Drive

"Down in the River is a startling, disturbing, and ultimately entrancing novel, a fever dream that astounds and never sits still for a moment, breathlessly played out in the sad twilight between the innocence of childhood and the despair of age, life lived on the last edges of love and loyalty strained to their limits."
--Ernest Hilbert, author of Caligulan

"Blacketter has created an outsider story of adolescence that left me wanting to travel more with his characters; I felt connected to them as they opened my eyes to new forms of chaos."
--Max Wolf Valerio, author of The Criminal: the invisibility of parallel forces.

“I couldn’t put God’s Hacker down. Often it felt like On the Road, capturing swift movement and many characters in the American tapestry. The book is psychologically fraught, understated, and rewarding. By the title, I assumed it was an exposé of a Christian charlatan, but I was delighted to discover it’s about love, life, and hope. The writing is raw and evocative and it inspired me to write.” ----Jose Chaves, author of The Contract of Love, on "God’s Hacker"

Drowning in Confusion

I know this is bad taste to argue with a bad review, but I can't help it, since the article has risen into my first Google page. When this review appeared in 2014, written by Sam Slaughter, it had several significant errors. This reviewer wrote that Lyle's sister, Lila, had "jumped off a bridge," though she actually hadn't jumped off a bridge. He also wrote that my protagonist, toward the end of the book, is carrying around a "stinking corpse" in his backpack and wonders why nobody notices the smell. In fact, Lyle, in his cracked state of mind, steals a soap mummy. It has no smell, and there is much in the book devoted to explaining that fact. All told, I found eight such errors and sent them to the editor, asking him to tell the author to fix them. He fixed a couple of them. It was actually funny that the article was called "Drowning in Confusion."

Ryan's Fiction Workshop Course Descriptions

High-Risk Fiction: A Writing Workshop
This class encourages fiction that, like all good writing, takes emotional risks. This riskiness sets literature apart from the dishonesty of bad books, TV, and movies. Workshop is not confession, but in the privacy of their writing rooms students might begin to tell personal stories that perhaps they have only told about other people.

"Tell everything on yourself," Raymond Carver urged. Virginia Woolf would have agreed: "If you do not tell the truth about yourself, you cannot tell it about other people." Yet we will never assume anything in a story actually happened to the writer. Rigorous storytelling, of course, evolves into fiction, blurring and even obliterating its source material.

We will read published stories as models. Amy Hempel writes of a woman who abandons a close friend dying of cancer, and confronts the aftermath of her choice. Thom Jones explores one soldier’s psychological territory of war, aggression, and epileptic torment, in which “illness” provokes desires to find a better way to live.

Hemingway: A Writing Workshop
We will read the short stories of Ernest Hemingway as writers, applying his mastery of craft to our own fiction. Hemingway is still the most influential writer of our time. His literary principles are universal. He was no minimalist, nor a mere innovator of style. Writers around the world claim him as their greatest teacher, including such talents as Albert Camus, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Frederick Barthelme, and John Updike.

To read Hemingway well is an experience of profound enrichment. He rendered human experience with such intensity and truth, creative writers will always search his prose for secrets.



While discouraging Hemingway imitations, this class will examine concepts that writers of all tastes can use to improve their work. We’ll discuss sensory detail, compression, density of meaning, musical language, coiled dialogue, and the iceberg principle. We’ll devote the second half of class to workshopping our own stories.