Joyce Hall Williams

 

Joyce Hall Williams is a native Tennessean (Knoxville) who now lives in Alabama. The daughter of an educator and his musician wife, she married a returned WWII veteran, who, over the years, kept going back to other parts of the world to lend assistance. She has lived and worked in three countries in Asia, three in Africa and Romania in eastern Europe. Presntly, she is an active volunteer in both the adult literacy program in Alabama and also Headstart for children. Her books are A VOLUNTEER IN ROMANIA and SUNSHINE AND SHADOWS.

A VOLUNTEER IN ROMANIA is the result of Joyce's travel with a team of experts whose mission was to introduce private enterprise to the Romanian farmers only a year after they, the Romanians, staged their own revolution at the end of l989. A former reporter, Joyce gleaned information from Romanian oral historians, the only valid record remaining after years of occupation, to answer questions such as were the Romanians truly turncoats in both world wars, did they send their Jewish citizens off to be imprisoned, who were their Daco-Romanian ancestors, how have Romanians managed to keep their church doors open through all the centuries of turbulence, do they extend religious freedom to others, and is America the "new" Roman empire?

SUNSHINE AND SHADOWS, is fiction, a collection of fifteen short stories from seven countries (including Alabama!) Stories are grouped by era, beginning with the return of the doughboy on through America's sustained effort to assist other countries, up until today. Best read at random, the voices are many. As the title implies, some are downright hilarious and others are sad. SUNSHINE AND SHADOWS offers the reader the chance to ride in a Model-T Ford during the depression; experience the aftermath of mid-century wars; read about a man of gentle heart in a “rough-neck” body; walk with “Opry” star Carl down the longest hallway of his life; visit a shrink in a piano box in India; enjoy Christmas in paradise; hear a U.S. Marine defend America during Watergate; ride a Mammy Wagon to a village switch fight; view daybreak in an African jungle with a howler monkey; bang around Bangladesh with a mullah.

 

 

 

Pageonelit.com: Where did you grow up and was reading and writing a part of your life? Who were your earliest influences and why?

Joyce Hall Williams: I grew up all over the state of Tennessee. Both of my parents were educators, and there was no tenure at the time. I wrote my first story when I was three. I took it to my father and, from those scribbles, he fashioned the best story I had ever heard! Once or twice, he had to remove his glasses to wipe his eyes. I had no idea I was that good! My mother, a musician, brought culture to my life, my dad taught me that every human being has a unique value, and my older sister was my best friend.

 

Pageonelit.com: Why did you write A VOLUNTEER IN ROMANIA? Tell us about this book --- How long did it take to write?

Joyce Hall Williams: I wrote "A Volunteer in Romania" because I felt, from the first, that Romanians had been misjudged by historians who were not their own. When the American Ambassador to Romania expressed the same view to Congress, I was inspired to put their story into readable form. (The late) Dr. Sybille Tulliu, who supplied me with information, corrected me when I was wrong and encouraged me when I was right. I worked on the book four years. The word "volunteer" has a double meaning. I was a volunteer worker and I am from the Volunteer state.

 

 

Pageonelit.com: Tell us a little about your second book SUNSHINE AND SHADOWS --- Where did the title come from?

Joyce Hall Williams: I chose the title "Sunshine and Shadows" because the stories come from a heart of joy but where sorrow also nestles. I have experienced both. It is a collection of 15 short stories, which may be read at random, and set in seven countries: the American South, India, Sri Lanka, Nigeria, Kenya, Bangladesh and Romania. I have lived and worked in all those places.

 

 

Pageonelit.com: What has been your feedback from readers and book reviewers? What do they say to you about their interpretations of your books? What do they like about the books?

Joyce Hall Williams: Romanians who have read the book have thanked me for it, and that was the real test. Americans said they never even wanted to know much about that country, but now they would like to visit there. We have much more in common with its people than they realized.

"Sunshine and Shadows" reveals me as a person and offers the reader an opportunity to share experiences with me. Everyone who has read it has enjoyed the era and background information preceding each group of stories.They have especially remarked on characters from other countries who are allowed to speak for themselves. Every story invites the reader to laugh or to weep, or do a little of both.

 

Pageonelit.com: Tell me about your publishing experience -- The good, the bad and the ugly ...

Joyce Hall Williams: My first publishing experience was as a reporter with the Knoxville News Journal, the editor yelled at me not to call women in a visiting circus "ladies" unless I could prove it. Later, I recovered enough to write a regular column for the Nashville Tennessean. Meanwhile, I published some children's stories through the Standard Publishing Company, "Baby Talk," a publisher in Texas, and reported on having eaten a frozen peach from the first home freezer in Tennessee in "The Southern Agriculturist."

 

Pageonelit.com: Are you working on a follow up? Or something totally different?

Joyce Hall Williams: Presently, I am working on a second children's book which is co-authored by one of our daughters, Nancy West, assistant principal at Roy Allen Elementary School in Melbourne, Florida. Under the series name "Ruffitt vs Do-Well" we have already completed "Cradle of Mankind." Its illustrations are all derived from photographs we have taken. We are now writing "Let's Play Ball at the Taj Mahal." The last of the series will be "Roaming around Romania." These books are for middle readers and the first one will be offered on this site soon.

 

 

Pageonelit.com: What was the last book you read?

Joyce Hall Williams: Honestly, the very last book I read was a wonderful commentary on the Book of Psalms. I had no idea I had missed so much for so long.

 

 

Pageonelit.com: Do you have any hobbies? What are they? How do they enhance your writing.

Joyce Hall Williams: I volunteer work with Headstart children and also with adults in literacy. I am also a volunteer church librarian. I walk, very fast, two and one-half miles a day on the beautiful but hilly trail here in northwest Alabama. I golf when I can. Headstart children and the literacy adults get me out of the house and out of myself. Frequently, as I walk, I plot, and get my thoughts in order.