About Me
I'm a young man in an old man's body, trying to catch up to myself, trying to find pieces of me I left back in a disconnected youth and the early years of manhood. I'm a stereotype of many in my generation who can play the 'blame game', yell 'foul', and 'let's start over'. But, we are what we are, the sum of all the scary kid-emotions we experienced, the gin mills and piano bars that became our sandboxes of pleasure - lotus eaters of the best (or, worst) kind, the love affairs that did not quite settle us down, the sad poetry and songs written in bars and motels along the way... A Dreamer! A Wanderlust! The world needs such fools as we to write our books, our poetry, our songs, to offset the madness that plagues the soul.
I've written fourteen books, over three hundred blog posts, in search of those pieces left somewhere in many parts of the globe. You can preview my books on the next page. There's even a Blog page...all my posts are not showing on this recently created blog page, but, if you want to read more, go to my official blog site and check out the archives: http://www.thefinalcurtain1.wordpress.com
Most important among the searching, I found Julie Anne - she's there in the picture with me.
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BOOKS OF MYSTERY - SUSPENSE - ACTION - CRIME - THRILLER - ROMANCE - MEMOIRS
FICTION (SOME INSPIRED BY TRUE EVENTS!) - NON-FICTION - QUALITY READING
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Never knew what it was in life that I really wanted to do...guess that had something to do with my Appalachian roots in East Tennessee, a broken family, and so much mobility. Saw a lot of cowboy movies as a kid and thought about acting for awhile. Loved to sing and thought about being a singer. Being an actor or a singer meant there would be audiences, and I was a bashful boy who wasn't too comfortable in crowds.
Wanted to be a fireman. Wanted to be a cop. A professional golfer. A tennis pro.
The 'want list' just kept changing. You likely know where I'm going with this opening bio brevity. My dreams were fleeting because I was a fickle fellow whose roots never got too deep anywhere, any time. So. when those Tennessee hills were behind me and that big adult world opened up to me, well, it kind of overwhelmed me. There were so many Appalachian and bible belt emotions conflicting inside my heart and mind that made me easy and ready to make a lot of mistakes. Make them, surely did, too many to enumerate, and my guess is I've been blaming old Appalachia, the hills of Tennessee, the broken family, the mobility, all the emotions laid upon me, for this rather wanderlust life that I've been living. Guess I've always been chasing that something that was missing in those long ago days.
Now, don't get me wrong. With the mistakes, which you can read about later, there were successes and honorable service to my country in the US Navy. The successes, in my way of thinking, were: a college BA degree with a major in English; high school teaching; sales and marketing management positions with some of our top educational publishers; my own business; and, after several attempts, a wonderful wife and extended family.
The most exhilarating success has been my writing 14 books. The writing has allowed me to purposefully wander through some simple plot lines and characters' lives to explore my own dimensions, to discover some things about myself I never really considered. Up front, I'll state too brashly for some, my books are good, well written, and easy to read. Sure, the critics, even I, will still find the occasional errata that most writers disdain. There is nothing, however, that has given me more pleasure than turning a phrase that says everything I want it to say, to re-read a passage that brings back some emotional echoes. So, you have a short bio glimpse of Billy Ray Chitwood, an Appalachian kid who ate some emotional soup and spent a lifetime trying to digest it.
Are Billy Ray's books worthy of a read? My vote doesn't count. Only you can tell me with any certainty... On to the books. JUST CLICK ON 'BOOKS' IN THE MENU SECTION.
