Good morning, all! 1. Your Name: What's your name? What would you like to be called? How did you come up with your member-name? My name is Kerry Parsons. My penname is William Parsons. Please call me Kerry. I derived my username, WillowtreeWriter, from the fact that I write short stories, novels, and screenplays, and I live on a 29-acre beautiful piece of Central Virginia called Willowtree. 2. Age: How old are you? How long have you been interested in WWII? I am 44 years old. I have been interested in WWII for most of my adult life. A number of my stories are set in Australia, and, one time during my research about Oz, I came across the story of the 19 Feb, 1942, Japanese sneak attack on Port Darwin, Northern Territory, the same task force that ten weeks earlier had perpetrated the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor. Ever since then I have been more and more deeply fascinated by the Pacific Theater of WWII. I'm working on a novel/screenplay project entitled Missing, Presumed Dead whose setting and circumstances are the 19 Feb, 1942, attack in Darwin. 3. Origins: Where are you from? I am originally from Gloucester, Massachusetts (if you're from Gloucester, the U.S. Navy -- and/or the Coast Guard -- are in your DNA, by osmosis, so, even though I've never served -- much to my regret, actually -- it strikes me that it's no accident that I've involved myself with characters who are in the Navy and so many of my stories and plotlines involve the Navy). 4. Specifics: What areas of WWII are you interested in? What would you like to know more about? I would like, therefore, of course, to learn much more about the Pacific Theater in World War II. As I build my characters, I like to delve deeply and realistically into their backgrounds, so I will be picking forum members' brains about nuances of training, shipboard life, ports of call, thoughts, feelings, impressions, the entire gamut of the soldier, sailor, and marine on the ground (my characters are very much the everyman, those are the characters that fascinate, not the big names of history). 5. Miscellaneous: Anything else you'd like to share with us? I do welcome and encourage you to visit my Personal Web Page which offers a host of information about my professional background, my personal background, and my hobbies, and my author site William Parsons, which details my published works, my work in progress, my submitted works, and my awards. There is a contact form on the author site, and I would love to read your comments and feedback. Thanks so much for this opportunity to pick your brains, and I look forward to an ongoing dialogue with many of you.
Thanks, Lou, for the warm, kind welcome. And thanks, too, Gordon and KJ Jr, for your greetings. I'm excited to be on this forum. I've already posted a question about U.S. infantrymen of direct German descent, and I have already received much wonderful feedback. I'm going to have many, many questions for the forum. My goal has always been and will always continue to be to write my characters, plots, and storylines with as much realism as I can muster (and it's a win-win, because my stories are much better about it, and I learn more and more about this topic that I find so fascinating). Thanks again.
