Bill Schweitzer

When I set out to write Doves, my primary objective was to craft a coming-of-age story involving pre-adolescent and early adolescent characters, and delve into the psychological and physiological changes faced by children of those ages. They say to write what you know, so I set the story in 1958, when I was the age of the characters (yes, I really am that old), and in the neighborhood, and even the house, where I grew up. I changed the names of local streets, but kept the names of major thoroughfares unchanged. My actual neighborhood was not really a planned development the way it’s depicted. I lived in Stevie’s house, but changed the floorplan to suit the story. A few of the other homes were modeled on the homes of some of my friends. I anticipate that anyone who grew up in North Austin during that time will enjoy figuring out the actual street names. The restaurant names, The Frisco, The Chicken Shack, Holiday House, were all real restaurants, which are all now closed. The grocery store, Big Bear, was a real store. It had a great arcade game with a little bear you would “shoot” with a beam of light. Stieglitz Drugs was based on Naus Drugstore and Tarrytown Pharmacy. Martin’s Kumback Place (Dirty’s), and Scholz Garten are real Austin icons that exist to this day. Shoal Creek still floods in a heavy deluge, and The Tavern still gets flooded, as does House Park. And yes, a friend of mine did end up with a water moccasin on his back porch during one of the floods. We really did walk across Shoal Creek on the handrail of the yellow footbridge, and I was terrified. Many of the adult characters in the book were based on actual people. I wanted to include Molly Ivins, but she was not around in 1958, so I created a hybrid character of her and Ronnie Dugger, who was the original editor of The Texas Observer a local paper that inspired The Texas Sentinal in the story.

My time spent traveling abroad gave me the opportunity to study and experience other cultures. This helped me realize the provincialism of so many Americans. I didn't expressly reflect other cultures in my writing, but tried to contrast broad-minded characters with more insular, narrow-minded ones. I did model the character of Dr. George Smithwick on an English neighbor during my time in the Middle East.

Doves is more focused on the Austin area, so the descriptions of the weather and food are those of the place and time the story is set.

My wife is a very strong woman. We never discussed her influence, but she was touched by my dedication.

Austin is well-known these days, and those who wax nostalgic are usually thinking about the Austin of the 80's and 90's. I wanted to paint a picture of an even earlier Austin, that became the genesis of the vibrant music scene and hippie culture of later decades.

It would have been a longer distance to the forests that were the setting for so much of the action by 1958. I also changed street names of local streets with the thought that Austin residents might enjoy trying to figure out which real streets I was referencing. I left the names of major thoroughfares unchanged, and used actual restaurants and shops.

Doves is loosely based on Project MKUltra, a nefarious effort by the CIA to weaponize LSD and other hallucinogens. I also wanted to give it the flavor of those cheesy science fiction movies in the 1950s, like Invasion of the Body Snatchers, and of the much-loved television series, The Twilight Zone.v What role does the sense of place play in your writing? Do you believe the setting is as much of a character as the people in the story?

Definitely, the advantage of setting the story where I grew up and live now allowed me to make the setting authentic.v After living in places like the Middle East and Germany, how did you adapt back to life in Austin, and did your international experiences change how you view the city?

The Austin of the 50s and 60s was a great place to grow up, if you were white. A large number of my fellow "boomers" yearn for what they remember as "the good ol' days." I wanted to contrast the good with the bad and show that the good ol' days were not always that good.

It was more of a smorgasbord of experiences. I loved the opportunity to see beautiful places and found that people everywhere can be kind and accepting if you approach them with the right attitude. I also saw many "ugly Americans," and was embarrassed and dismayed by their behavior.

I had a good friend while living in Germany, just outside of Heidelberg, who thought Americans were so strongly individualistic that they failed to appreciate the value of altruism and social cooperation. I try to emphasize this contrast in my writing. It is a strong theme in my upcoming sequel to Doves.

“The Lab” in my story represents the corporate environment and the strictures working in that environment forces onto workers.

I’ve almost completed the sequel: Doves in a Tempest-The Underground World. This sequel answers the queries left unanswered in the first book and can be the end of the series, but ends in such a way that I can return to it in the future if I decide to. Underground World is somewhat more focused on coming of age as a theme. Anna Belle takes an even more prominant role in this volume and explores her inner struggles in detail. A few new characters are introduced as Anna and James start Junior High (no middle school in those days) and much of the story is set there. I have plans for a change in direction for the next book, a hybrid of a hard-boiled detective story and a cozy mystery. It’s tentatively titled Stone and Holmes - The Case of the SoCo Ripper. It's a kind of PI buddies story with one of the buddies, Holmes, being a small dog the main character, Stone Igneous, picks up from the pound. Notice that I like to play with characters' names, I do so quite a bit in the sequel and plan to in Stone and Holmes.

I would say this is yet to be determined, but I have high hopes that our collaboration will lead to more sales, especially when the sequel is published.