A Profile of Christine Rice

Author of Swarm Theory (2016) and Founder of Hypertext Magazine

“I can’t see things in black and white,” Christine Rice says as she sits in Columbia College Chicago’s Publishing Lab, a room outfitted with shiny computer screens and an oversized lacquered conference table. “I don’t think I could be a cop, I don’t think I could be a judge, I don’t think I could be a lawyer, because I always see too many options.” Maybe that’s why Rice has so many jobs. In addition to being a mother (arguably the most difficult occupation in the world), Rice is also an adjunct professor at Columbia College, as well as the founder and editor of Hypertext Magazine, an online literary journal that is “looking for writers who take chances, push forms, [and] see the world in new ways.” 

That sense of adventure, of tackling the unknown, is present in all aspects of Rice’s life. As the granddaughter of two sets of immigrant grandparents (one from Europe, the other from the Middle East), Rice grew up in a decidedly unacademic environment. In a family of grocers and merchants, the prevailing question hanging over Rice, who showed interest in writing from a young age, was always, “Yes, but what are you going to do for work?” Even an early affinity for many a writer’s best friend, the macabre, wasn’t strong enough to quell Rice’s familial anxiety. With a twinkle in her brown eyes, she recounts the recent unearthing of some of her first works from childhood, stories in which almost every character perishes. “The mother died and the father died and Ferocious the cat lived on! My kids were looking at them [the stories] like, ‘These are really depressing!’” 

Even with her penchant for storytelling, Rice at first chose the path more traveled, attending Valparaiso University in Indiana with a focus on journalism and English. After graduating, the pressure from her family still hanging over her head like a storm cloud, Rice took a job at a consulting firm, an experience that she describes as, “The worst seven years of my life.” Rice recalls with a pained laugh a certain boss who would throw freshly sharpened pencils at her employees in order to gain their attention (she still has PTSD-style dreams of those yellow missiles flying towards her). Yet it was the things she was asked to write that left the worst impression on her. When a higher-up confessed to asking Rice to write blatant lies to employees regarding their jobs, she found herself wondering, “What am I doing here?” After that, Rice began to pull away from the corporate world, focusing her attention on freelance work. 

Still, it wasn’t until she became a Graduate student at Columbia College that Rice began to understand that writing could indeed be used to tell stories. “I always knew I wanted to write, but it took me a while to get what other people would want to see. I knew I was enjoying it, but you also have to say, ‘There’s also this audience that might want to read it.’” Her time at Columbia eventually lead to her position as an adjunct professor, a role that Rice approaches with equal parts love and hate. “I am an adjunct faculty member, which means that I am not respected in a lot of ways, not just here, but in the world overall… [But] I just enjoy teaching.” Rice cites her path towards her career as problematic, saying that she lacked knowledge in terms of the “right” school and the “right” job. “You have to know what you’re doing,” she says matter-of-factly, gesturing towards an imaginary map. “Think about where you want to teach and what you want to do and have a goal at the end. I was just teaching and having kids and not having a goal at the end and not really caring, and I still don’t really care, except for recent changes like how we’re treated. So yeah, it’s great, but not if you have to support yourself.”

The “great” that Rice speaks of is her affinity for Columbia College’s Story Workshop Method, a unique approach to creative writing that has influenced her both personally and professionally. A professor since 1992, Rice has come to know the Story Workshop Method inside and out. Twelve years ago she was asked by Randy Albers, a department professor and chair emeritus, to edit Hair Trigger, the Department of Creative Writing’s award-winning student anthology. It was this opportunity that lead Rice to become even more critical of her own work, finding things that didn’t work in student pieces and then identifying those same issues in her own stories. “That moment when you take a quick breath and think, ‘Oh! That’s me!’ It makes you see it from the outside in. You think of your audience and look at your own work with all that experience of reading behind you.” 

It was this experience, among other things, that lead Rice to create Hypertext Magazine some five years ago. “Writing is so solitary,” she says, her face awash in quiet pride. “I’ve never really found a good way to collaborate.” Thus Hypertext was born, a place where collaboration is the name of the game, Rice working with a plethora of writers, editors, and even interns to “get you out of your own head for a little while.” As the founder and head editor of Hypertext, it’s Rice's job to curate stories, seek out submissions, read (a lot), and manage her other editors, not to mention the physical production of the website, which includes everything from formatting to copyediting. There is also Hypertext’s upcoming “Best Of” issue to work on, the magazine’s first ever print edition that will feature the best work from the last five years, as well as new pieces from favorite authors. Despite the heavy workload, Rice wouldn’t have it any other way. “The thing about editing is that it’s kind of always a thankless job, because you’re always just behind the scenes and you want to make other people’s work look great… You just don’t know all the work that goes into it, and it is a lot of work, but I like it. It’s a nice counterbalance to writing and teaching.” 

When looking for work that appeals to Hypertext’s sensibilities, Rice always appreciates a piece with, “A little bit of tooth to it.” Unlike other literary magazines that decide on pieces based solely on what a writer’s biography does (or doesn’t) include, Rice likes to read the submission first and let it speak for itself. The less homogenized, the better; Rice wants imperfect pieces with unique voices and perspectives. “I like Tennessee Williams because he’s always so uneven. He’s always kind of pushing it and taking risks, and he’s not perfect. I hate really perfect, [where] everything is just tied up.” She applies the same ideals to her own work. “Who wants to hear about another academic having an affair with a student?” she asks with a laugh. “If I have to read one more of those…” Instead, Rice is focused on new ideas and the blending of genres, hinting at two stories she is currently working on: one a science fiction novel, and the other a piece set in World War I. “It’s really fun to try different genres and different approaches. Good writing is good writing.” Hypertext is also looking to curate more pieces around a central theme in the near future, despite the difficulties of having “a literary magazine where you don’t pay people.” Rice is especially drawn to the idea of “growing up.” “However that manifests itself in your life. Whatever that means to you. Whether you’re going off to college, or getting a new job, or graduating from college, or getting married, or having kids, whatever it is where you have to make a tough decision, those moments when you think, ‘OK, I can’t be this kid anymore. I have to be something else.’” 

Hypertext itself is growing up, too. As a perfect marriage of her two professions, plus her love for the Story Workshop Method, Rice recently launched Hypertext Studio, a series of writing bootcamps, workshops, and classes that are open to the public. Professors have included The Chicago Tribune’s Heidi Stevens, and science fiction writer Richard Chwedyk. And while many of the classes are taught Story Workshop style, Rice made sure to keep Hypertext Studio open to whatever teaching methods people show interest in. “Story Workshop has been undergoing a bit of an attack. Clearly we know it’s not the only way to teach, and clearly we know that there are other ways to teach, but there have been a lot of us who it speaks to and works for. [But] a lot of creative people learn differently.” Rice’s hope in including the Story Workshop Method within Hypertext Studio is that her efforts will keep it “alive outside of Columbia” for the children, teens, and adults who would otherwise never have exposure to it. 

With everything on her plate, you think Rice would be slowing down. In fact, she is doing just the opposite. Her first book, Swarm Theory, a collection of linked stories, will be published by University of Hell Press early next year. It, like all of Rice’s endeavors, has been a challenging labor of love: six years in the making, and already on its third revision, the stories play with form and time in the very way that Rice admires in the work of others. “It’s, like, the best thing ever,” she says of learning about the publication last fall. “Besides my family, it’s like the best thing ever… If I could just sit in a room, never have to do anything or go anywhere, and just type, get up, stretch a couple times - livin’ the dream.” Yet Rice admits that she would miss the work of editing and teaching, as difficult as they can often be. “Everything that I did lead me up to Hypertext Magazine and Hypertext Studio,” she says happily. “I wouldn’t give it up for anything. Ever, ever. It all beats being in a cubicle.”