Tell us about yourself and how many books you have written.
I was raised as a preacher’s kid, the oldest of 7 kids, in a tiny town in Michigan. I earned degrees in Business, Journalism & Advertising. After college, with no strong interest in business, I fell into a career directing YMCA camps serving Chicago area children and families. I loved working with people from diverse backgrounds and also disabled children. My degrees came in handy with management, promotion & organization. After 23 years with Y camps, I helped open, direct and coordinate a unique foster care agency, SOS Children’s Villages Illinois. I began writing after I retired. My partner told me to find something to do and I took a writing class and was hooked. I won local awards and a statewide one for some of my work. My first novel was published in 2018. Face Your Fears, was inspired by working over the years with disabled persons and deals with a disabled teen, Nate McGuire, coming out, coming of age, and eventually falling in love with an able bodied man. My second novel, The Rooming House Diaries – Life, Love & Secrets, published in July 2019. It uses background material I expanded and further developed based upon the back stories of Nate’s mother & grandmother living in a rooming house. My third novel, The Rooming House Gallery – Connecting the Dots, will publish in mid-2020. It tells the story of the couple who inherit the old rooming house, what they do with it, how the diaries affected their lives and how they go on to establish a community art center in a needy and diverse neighborhood, plus another non-DNA family.
What is the name of your latest book and what inspired it?
The Rooming House Diaries – Life, Love & Secrets was partly inspired by the backstory of a sub-character in my first novel, Face Your Fears, who lived in a rooming house as an unwed pregnant teen. My writers group, Beloit Public Library Stateline Night Writers, suggested I expand her story and develop others based around the rooming house. I did a good deal of research and wrote other diaries, all based upon the socioeconomic changes in Chicago starting with Polish immigrants, their children and several roomers. Chicago is such a melting pot and it was exciting weaving the stories throughout the demographic changes at a personal level in my character’s lives. From immigration, to a love child fathered during a war, to a white teen pregnant by a Mexican boyfriend, to a disturbed child who is a predator yet dies in Vietnam saving lives, to a young man who worked the streets of Tijuana, to the rooming house becoming an underground hospice for undocumented & unwanted AIDS victims, the book covers 125 years of time in an inspiring manner.
Do you have any unusual writing habits?
Some have said, anything I do is usually unusual. I was diagnosed and have lived with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome for over 20 years. I write or edit as my energy level allows. Usually that’s every day, but with no set times or goals for a word count. I prefer it quiet, though I can concentrate in public spaces when traveling. I always take my laptop along and find places and some times to write no matter where I am at. We take an extended cruise each year & I find I can get a lot written on sea days. But (usually) no coffee, no music, a messy desk and piles of books around me in our bedroom are my environment.
What authors, or books have influenced you?
Looking back, I realize Ken Follett gave me a love for historical fiction which showed up in my second book. Some current authors who inspired me are: Raymond Luczak (Flannelwood), Carol Rifka Brunt (Tell The Wolves I’m Home), Sarah Waters (The Paying Guests), Ursula Hegi (Stones from the River), Tom Spanbauer (The Man Who Fell In Love With The Moon), Sanderia Faye (Mourners Bench), Joan Didion (The Year of Magic Thinking), Julie Beekman (Two Trees). There are more, many more!
What are you working on now?
I’m working on something far different, more of a psychological mystery, though the theme is still family. Tentatively titled, Revenge is Necessary, a successful, stoic, calm corn/soybean farmer tells his 17-year old son that he’s not the kids father, orders him to leave while pointing a double-barrel shotgun at him, fires at him, then turns the gun on his wife to kill her. They struggle for the gun, it discharges seriously wounding him in his lower leg. In the aftermath, long buried secrets emerge that not only involve the immediate family, but also the farming community as the double lives of the farmer and his assistant are discovered. The why is gradually answered as the childhoods of the the farmer and his assistance are revealed.
What is your best method or website when it comes to promoting your books?
I’ve mostly used Facebook. My writing coach, Kathie Giorgio https://www.allwritersworkshop.com) has been instrumental in getting me to speak at a regional book festival. I’m hoping to do more with Twitter and Instagram. I’m holding several author/book events for the release of my latest book. Word of Mouth is helpful. I spent the money and received a wonderful review from Kirkus, which maybe opening some doors.
Do you have any advice for new authors?
Write. Write. Write. Read. Read. Read. Find a writing group to get involved in. Giving and receiving feedback is extremely helpful. A critique group is even better. Get other people to read your work, at least some of them shouldn’t be your proud mother or friends. You need to receive constructive criticism. I had to learn to be less defensive and have learned so much more and been helped so much.
What is the best advice you have ever heard?
Keep on Keeping On… Writing is not a race, it’s a slog through the swamps, the flatlands, the mountains and the valleys. Don’t give up.
What are you reading now?
I always have several books going. Right now it’s: Hearing Voices by Teresa Roberts; Sherlock Holmes: The Complete Novels by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle; Nurses on the Inside by Ellen Matzer & Valery Hughes; Burning Bright by Nick Petrie.
What’s next for you as a writer?
Keeping on with my psychological mystery and then back to a draft I set aside. I need to decide whether to trim it or expand it into two books.
If you were going to be stranded on a desert island and allowed to take 3 or 4 books with you what books would you bring?
The Sherlock Holmes collection, I just started reading him and am enthralled. I’d take my Kindle – loaded – and a solar charger. 3 or 4 books just ain’t enough!
Author Websites and Profiles
Bill Mathis Website
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