Morgan Richter

@morganrichter

Author of THE DIVIDE and THE UNDERSTUDY, both from Knopf. Gen-X pop culture maven, Duran Duran aficionado, Miami Vice expert. Failed screenwriter, retired YouTuber.

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Morgan Richter@morganrichter· 20d

Hanging out in Anchorage, spying on moose from a respectful distance.

A handsome bull moose in a nice wooded area.

Morgan Richter@morganrichter· 21d

Author Giles Blunt would no doubt be shattered to know that a sloppy, scammy, AI-written pitch from a fake book club was lazily sent to me instead of to him. I received my own scammy pitch as well, and boy howdy, there's nothing more soullessly glib and obnoxious than AI-written marketing text.

AI-written email from "Alison White," though I'm sure this person does not actually exist:

"Hello Giles,

I came across your book Bad Juliet, and I was immediately captivated by its haunting atmosphere, emotional depth, and intriguing blend of historical fiction, romance, and mystery. The setting of a tuberculosis sanitarium in the Adirondack Mountains creates a powerful backdrop for a story filled with longing, secrets, and uncertainty. Paul Gascoyne’s growing fascination with Sarah Ballard, a survivor of the Lusitania disaster, adds a compelling emotional layer, while the gradual unraveling of her memoir promises twists that keep readers questioning what is real and what is imagined. The combination of suspense, heartbreak, and beautifully drawn characters makes Bad Juliet a truly memorable reading experience.

Our book club is dedicated to connecting exceptional books with passionate readers through curated reading experiences, engaging discussions, and strategic promotional campaigns..."

AI-written email to me from "Alison White":

"Hello Morgan,

I came across your book The Divide, and I was immediately captivated by its irresistible blend of mystery, suspense, and Hollywood intrigue. The premise of a failed actress and grifting psychic becoming entangled in a murder investigation after being mistaken for her missing doppelgänger is both original and incredibly compelling. Jenny St. John’s journey through a world of celebrity, deception, hidden identities, and long-buried secrets creates the perfect foundation for a fast-paced and unpredictable thriller. The combination of sharp wit, psychological tension, and a cast of fascinating characters makes The Divide the kind of novel that keeps readers hooked from the very first page.

Our book club is dedicated to connecting exceptional books with passionate readers through curated reading experiences, engaging discussions, and strategic promotional campaigns..."

Morgan Richter@morganrichter· Jul 10

Every author, upon entering any public library, immediately heads to the shelf upon which their books should be shelved and takes the equivalent of this photo, right? Right? Just me?

A display of books on a shelf at a public library. Books include copies of The Divide and The Understudy, both by Morgan Richter.

Morgan Richter@morganrichter· Jul 5

I picked up these adorable bunny socks at the local Japanese discount store today, but my bunion-plagued feet (I walk ~13-15 miles per weekday) have made the bunnies look more like llamas.

My feet clad in adorable bunny socks, which my lumpy and misshapen feet have pulled in weird directions.

Morgan Richter@morganrichter· Jun 22

"NO SLEEP 'TIL BROOKLYN" I cry, as I enter the Unicorn Tapestries display at The Cloisters, after having spent the morning at the Metropolitan Museum, satiated by exposure to art, yet dearly longing to return to the calm, quiet loft in Brooklyn where I've been staying for a bit.

Back of me as I enter the famed Unicorn Tapestries display at The Cloisters in NYC.

Morgan Richter@morganrichter· Jun 14

Excerpt from a best-selling YA book, which I am enjoying, but this passage made me blink. "Chased criminals that they always caught"? Huh? Miami Vice was an *unfathomably* bleak show, in which justice was never really served. That was the whole point of the series!

Excerpt from a young adult book, the title of which I'm withholding because the author is on Bluesky and I don't want him to feel ambushed if he does a vanity search for his name: "That night, with the lights of the bay twinkling outside the floor-to-ceiling windows of their luxurious suite in the sky, Mariel and Gena watched comfort TV. Cheesy episodes of some show that aired years before Mariel was even born. Mariel leaned into her mother, who gently stroked her hair, while two smooth Miami detectives, dressed in pastels, chased criminals that they always caught."

Morgan Richter@morganrichter· Jun 9

We don't usually see each other's headers. Here's mine. Quote post with yours. (Also, please consider adding my weird neo-noir thriller The Divide to your reading list. It earned lovely reviews, including a handful of highly flattering Chandler comparisons, but it never quite found its audience.)

Banner featuring the cover of The Divide by Morgan Richter, along with some nice pull quotes from reviews: “A wild ride of a novel. Richter, an industry veteran and pop culture critic, writes with the energy of a freshly charged battery, full of bright sparks, quick wit and vivid color.” -- Sarah Weinman, The New York Times. “Ms. Richter’s novel starts as an offbeat mystery and turns into an emotional tour de force.” -- Tom Nolan, Wall Street Journal. “A riveting neo-noir thriller about mistaken identity and what it means to live and die in LA. Weird and wonderfully addictive--reads like Agatha Christie on acid, or maybe Raymond Chandler adapted by the Coen Brothers.”--Ernest Cline, #1 New York Times best-selling author of Ready Player One.

Morgan Richter@morganrichter· May 30

Did you know that Tim Capello appeared in a season-three (1986-1987) Miami Vice episode, in which he looked like he arrived straight from the set of The Lost Boys? The screenshot is from a blog post I wrote back in 2015, because that's how long I've been telling people about this.

Screenshot from the season three Miami Vice episode "Theresa", featuring Tim Capello, his glossy pecs fully out, with Brad Dourif (!!!). This is a really great episode, a standout of the spotty third season; everyone should watch it.

Morgan Richter@morganrichter· May 27

Damn it, Google. I was searching for the website for the Don't Yell At Me chain of tea shops (which I misremembered as Please Don't Yell At Me), and instead I got Google's AI getting *very precious* about my feelings. That's nice, Google. Can you just give me my search results instead?

Useless Google search results for the term "please don't yell at me": It shows a teary-eyed cat, and under "AI Overview," it reads: "I absolutely won't! I'm here to help, and I will always keep our conversations calm, respectful, and friendly. Take a deep breath. How can I help you today?"

Morgan Richter@morganrichter· May 22

After seeing everyone else's attempts to google "disregard," I tried it for myself and got the following. This is no way to run a search engine.

Google search results ("AI Overview") for the word "disregard." It just says, "Understood! I've cleared that previous thought from my memory. Whenever you are ready, let me know what you'd like to do next, and I'll be happy to help." There were no more search results on the page.

Morgan Richter@morganrichter· May 20

Quote with a fictional band that isn't Spinal Tap.

Cherry Bomb from 1986's Howard the Duck: Holly Robinson, Lea Thompson, Liz Sagal, Dominique Davalos. The film is... you know, it's not wonderful. But Cherry Bomb's "Hunger City," written by Thomas Dolby, is a genuine banger.

Morgan Richter@morganrichter· May 16

I feel like not enough people know that the creepy animatronic head at the core of Duran Duran's iconic Wild Boys video, shot at Pinewood Studios, is *literally* the rubber cast of Patrick Stewart's head used in Tobe Hooper's Lifeforce, which was shot at Pinewood Studios *right* before Wild Boys.

Duran Duran's amazing Wild Boys video, featuring a creepy animatronic head that looks a whole lot like Patrick Stewart.

Screencap from Tobe Hooper's Lifeforce, featuring Patrick Stewart, whose character died a grisly effects-laden death in the film via a rubber mask, which was immediately thereafter used in Russell Mulcahy's video for Duran Duran's "Wild Boys," which was also filmed at Pinewood Studios.

Morgan Richter@morganrichter· May 8

No love for the Escalator of Life video? Come on, it's *amazing.* Peak 1982. Dead-eyed and sinister rich folks/animated mannequins in fancy attire singing their way through an empty shopping mall. It's at least as creepy as it is campy, and I love it madly. Song's awfully catchy, too.

Screenshot from the 1982 video for Robert Hazard's "Escalator of Life" featuring a quartet of attractive yet creepy-looking people in gowns and tuxedos singing while riding up an escalator.

Morgan Richter@morganrichter· May 3

I'd pick either Highlander or Big Trouble in Little China, but both are absolutely flawless films that need no remaking. So I'm going to go with Solarbabies, because *absolutely no one* will get upset if my remake (somehow) turns out worse than the original.

The young cast of 1986's futuristic teens-on-rollerskates bomb Solarbabies: Peter DeLuise, Jami Gertz, Lukas Haas, Jason Patrick, Claude Brooks, and James Le Gros. They're all smiling and trying their very best to look like they're having a good time.

Morgan Richter@morganrichter· Apr 27

“Hmm, how can I sell an author on my transparently scammy book-marketing services? Maybe I should email her an AI-written summary of all her bad reviews, then insult her pop culture tastes!”

AI-written email to me: "Hello Morgan Richter, There is a specific kind of review that tells you more about a book's positioning problem than any sales figure ever could, and The Understudy has been collecting them since August. They read something like this: "interesting premise but required too much suspension of disbelief" or "went from thriller to mystery and lost momentum" or "I couldn't understand why Kit didn't just report Yolanda to the police." These are not reviews written by readers who disliked your book. They are reviews written by readers who arrived expecting a different book entirely a procedural, a tight domestic thriller in the Liane Moriarty mould, something where logic governs every turn. They found instead a novel that is campy, operatic, morally slanted, pop-culture-saturated, and deliberately absurdist in its escalations, a book that knows exactly what it is doing and does it with precision. The problem is not the writing. The problem is that the readers who would love The Understudy unconditionally are not the ones currently finding it. And that is a positioning problem, not a quality problem, which means it is fixable."

Continuation of the AI-written email trying to sell me on book-marketing services. (The email continues for six more overwrought and overwritten paragraphs along these same lines, but I thought I'd spare you those): "What you have built across your career is not the biography of a conventional thriller writer, and it shows in every page of The Understudy in ways that the right reader will recognise immediately and the wrong reader will find baffling. You graduated from the Filmic Writing program at USC's film school. You worked in television production on Talk Soup, the Emmy-winning E! comedy series that spent its entire run dissecting pop culture with deadpan precision and genuine satirical intelligence. You self-published five novels before The Divide became your traditional publishing debut with Knopf in 2024. You wrote Duranalysis, a book of cultural criticism about Duran Duran that amassed a genuine cult following, not because Duran Duran is universally beloved but because your analytical voice is sharp enough to make any subject compelling to the right reader. You were born in 1974, which means your creative DNA is wired to 1980s pop culture in the specific way that only people who consumed it at age ten can claim The Karate Kid, Miami Vice, Jane Fonda's Barbarella, the entire glittering, excess-drenched aesthetic of a decade that took itself completely seriously while being completely ridiculous. The Understudy is not a thriller that happens to be set in the opera world. It is a work of genre fiction by a pop culture critic and television comedy writer who understands camp, female rivalry, and dramatic escalation as artistic modes rather than flaws. Kit and Yolanda are not a realistic detective and a realistic villain. They are two women locked in a battle with the internal logic of an opera which is, of course, exactly the point. The readers who understand that will not be able to put it down. They are simply not finding it yet."

Morgan Richter@morganrichter· Apr 23

@rodman.bsky.social I'm sure you already know, but in case you missed it, you make an unexpected cameo (in a thoroughly benign way) in Slate's new lengthy piece on the Black Dahlia case: slate.com/culture/2026...

Excerpt from a Slate piece on the Black Dahlia killer: "We stopped by a water substation and talked about Chinatown, the 1974 masterpiece that loops together L.A.’s perpetual water crises with the sexual violence of the city’s most powerful man like intertwining images in a poem. Later, our group would stop on a wide, grassy boulevard, as noted novelist and screenwriter Howard Rodman—former president of the Writers Guild of America West, who just happened to be taking the tour that day—read a few pages from the script of Double Indemnity while two volunteers from our tour acted out a scene."

Morgan Richter@morganrichter· Apr 19

I always appreciated this gag from an early Universal Studios-shot episode of The A-Team, an in-joke so good they added it to the opening credits.

Screenshot from the opening credits of The A-Team, featuring former Battlestar Galactica star Dirk Benedict watching a Cylon walk past him on the Universal Studios lot.

Morgan Richter@morganrichter· Apr 15

My sister impulse-purchased a bag of plain potato chips imported from Mexico, and inside the bag it included packets of hot sauce, which is strangely endearing. Like, who's gonna want to eat potato chips without hot sauce?

A bag of very standard potato chips with salt with the label in Spanish, and a packet of hot sauce.

Morgan Richter@morganrichter· Apr 11

"Seeking experts to help shape AI's understanding of literature." Cute. For SO MANY REASONS, I'm gonna pass on applying for this one, thanks. (Not my biggest issue, but the salary range is listed as, ahem, "$6-$65 an hour + tips." That's a hell of a range, and also: a tip-based writing/editing job?)

Snippet from a job solicitation email that reads as follows: "Hi Morgan, Your background in writing and editing could be a strong match for this Literature Specialist role. Invisible Agency is seeking experts to help shape AI's understanding of literature. If you're interested in applying your skills in a new context, feel free to apply now or view the job description for more information."

Morgan Richter@morganrichter· Mar 20

In the wake of the Mia Ballard "Shy Girl" fiasco, I'm seeing valid concerns that AI has doomed publishing, but look: Readers clocked something phony about Ballard's writing and loudly objected, forcing Hachette to pull the book. Readers are smart, and this *could* deter others from trying this crap.

Excerpt from a NYT article, "A.I. Is Writing Fiction. Publishers Are Unprepared" by Alexandra Alter, found at https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/19/books/ai-fiction-shy-girl.html : "In the months since “Shy Girl” was released in Britain, more readers voiced their suspicions online that the writer relied on A.I., citing nonsensical metaphors and odd, repetitive phrasing. As a chorus of allegations built online in late January that the novel was A.I. generated, Hachette stayed silent."

Morgan Richter@morganrichter· Mar 16

I just saw this ad, and now I have so many questions in desperate need of answers.

Advertisement from the totally legit "Wellness Insight." Text: "Never mix gelatin with this - unless you want weight loss." Image shows a split screen of a woman taking a selfie while hoisting up her tank top to reveal a very suspect set of washboard ads, and some pink gelatin cubes that are in the process of being drizzled with splooge or whatever.

Morgan Richter@morganrichter· Mar 3

I logged into Facebook for the first time in a while, and I was immediately greeted by a barrage of suggested (yet very pointed) Facebook Reels that are being EXTREMELY JUDGMENTAL of me.

Triptych of Facebook Reels: 1) a judgy woman with the caption "I can tell you have FATTY LIVER just by looking at you." 2) a judgy man with the caption "7 Things Women with Undiagnosed Autism thing are Normal but are actually signs of Masking." 3) a super-judgy man with the caption "Gen X should be ashamed."

Morgan Richter@morganrichter· Feb 26

"Friends" is a beloved American sitcom that aired from 1994 to 2004, following six young adults—Rachel, Ross, Monica, Chandler, Joey, and Phoebe—living in New York City. The show explores their friendships, romances, careers, and personal growth over ten seasons.

Screencap from an episode of the 1980s GI Joe cartoon, featuring villains Storm Shadow, Destro, the Baroness, one of the Crimson Twins, and Cobra Commander.

Morgan Richter@morganrichter· Feb 6

Nice! Yeah, same with my childhood home. My sister and I live together, at least in part because after our parents died, we wanted to keep all the books--mine, hers, theirs--in one place.

Corner of my living room (which is a deceptive term; it's a studio apartment, so there are no rooms, per se) with bookcases filled with books. The whole damn apartment looks like this.

Morgan Richter@morganrichter· Jan 28

Per yesterday's Rolling Stone piece (www.rollingstone.com/politics/pol...), $28 million of that went straight to Melania. Which is a mighty hefty chunk of that budget!

Snippet from a Rolling Stone article: "According to The Wall Street Journal, the first lady kept roughly 70 percent of the licensing fee, $28 million, herself. And, technically, there is nothing illegal about that. “The first lady is, for ethical purposes, considered to be a private citizen, and so the conflicts-of-interest statutes, the regulations for other executive branch employees, simply don’t apply,” says Don Fox, the former acting director of the U.S. office of government ethics, who worked under Presidents George Bush and Barack Obama."

Morgan Richter@morganrichter· Jan 8

Tonight I watched a forgotten horror film from 1977 that featured the screen debut of Sexy Young Stephen Tobolowsky (playing a nubile young stable boy), and I'm still trying to wrap my brain around it.

Sexy Young Stephen Tobolowsky, looking young and sexy, in 1977's Keep My Grave Open.

Much-loved character actor Stephen Tobolowsky, known for Groundhog Day and dozens of other films.

Morgan Richter@morganrichter· Jan 6

Yes, yes, Dry January is all very nice and good and virtuous, but everything is terrible right now, and I happened to see a label this morning for a sparkling wine that spoke to my deepest soul.

A bottle of sparkling wine: "Rough Day Sparkling Extra Brut" with a drawing of a very glum-looking dog on the label.

Morgan Richter@morganrichter· Jan 6

Taking a brief stroll down Talk Soup memory lane. Delighted to see that my hairstyle has not changed one whit from 1997.

Screenshot from a 1997 episode of Talk Soup featuring me, Fred Mendes (director) and Perrin Sprecace (lighting) gathered around host John Henson.

Morgan Richter@morganrichter· Dec 31

I've dusted off my relevant Duranalysis cartoon from a decade or so ago, just to drill home the ludicrous awesomeness of this particular music video.

A four-panel cartoon by yours truly depicting scenes from Duran Duran’s “The Wild Boys” music video.

Heading: “SOMEWHERE IN A POST-APOCALYPTIC HELLSCAPE”:

Panel 1:
NICK RHODES: “John? John, can you hear me? Where are you?”

Panel 2:
JOHN TAYLOR: “Hey, Nick. I’m tied to a car in some kind of blatantly fetishistic bondage scenario. Third time this month. Weird.”

PANEL 3:
NICK RHODES: “I’m trapped in a cage, but I’m sure Simon has a plan to save us. I can barely see him. Looks like he’s strapped to a windmill.”

PANEL 4:
NICK RHODES (outside panel): “He’s... singing. I think he’s enjoying this.”
SIMON LE BON (singing, in bondage): “Wild boys always shiiiiiiine!”
JOHN TAYLOR (outside panel): “Crap. We are so screwed.”

Morgan Richter@morganrichter· Dec 25

This was eight years ago, my first year in Seattle, feeding the ducks in Volunteer Park on Christmas morning. I hope all ducks are warm and happy and full of nuts today.