Renaissance man Rick trades paintbrush for word processor

By Lethbridge Herald on September 25, 2025.

Al Beeber
Lethbridge Herald

Lethbridge’s Rick Gillis put away his art supplies and turned a new page in his creative life a few years ago when he penned his first novel.

Now Gillis is ready to launch another with an event on Oct. 3 at Analog Books from 6 until 8 p.m.

The Blairmore native penned his first book “The Boy Who Couldn’t Die” in 2017. His newest effort, called “Runaway Grannies,” is his sixth.

Gillis was a long-time visual artist before turning his creative  efforts to writing. A painter who worked primarily in acrylics, his  artistic endeavours also included photography, sculpture, multimedia and performance.

Whether in solo or group exhibitions, his art has been showcased  across the province.

His latest book is a departure from his previous writing endeavours, a humorous tale of two women named Constance and Maryanne Gilcrest in their late 50s who, due to financial circumstances, find themselves living together. Both have connections to a man whom Gillis kills off in the first chapter – one is the man’s widow and the other his ex-wife.

Gillis says the characters are diametrically opposed, one who is introspective and conservative, the other more outgoing and in-your-face.

“It’s been a fun ride,” Gillis said in an interview about his latest endeavour.

The story focuses on the women who get into financial trouble and decide the best answer to solve their monetary issues is to live together. They renovate the basement of children they share and begin living together.

“They’re really, really opposite in personality,” said Gillis, noting Constance is not initially fond of Maryanne.

“They have a granddaughter that they share so they decide they have to get along,” he said.

During the process of living together, the two iron out their differences and form a relationship bond, he said.

Free of their financial issues the two start living life to the  fullest, he said.

“It was a fun write. This is so different that it’s taken me two years  to write this. I do have a really good editor who’s a woman,” said  Gillis, who wrote the story from a female point of view. “I found myself initially kind of missing the mark, so it was a process to change my viewpoint on how women think, how women act, how women behave.”

Writing took about six months and editing another year and a half, he said.

“It’s a fun read. It starts slowly with the two characters sort of developing their relationship and it goes into this joyride they take  through life and they end up actually moving to and living in England”  with two twin brothers, he said.

Gillis wrote his first book about a year after he first retired, and “I’ve just embraced the writing. I don’t do art anymore at all.

“I just moved everything into my writing career.”