Wilfred Bereswill has published his first novel, a mystery. Thanks Claire Applewhite for giving him the third-degree about “A Reason for Dying.”

By Claire Applewhite

Will Bereswill is one of those people you swear you’ve known forever, even if you’ve only just met. With his easy smile and unassuming demeanor, it is easy to forget that he is a trained engineer and world traveler. One glance at his debut release, “A Reason For Dying” reveals the truth about this new St. Louis author (www.wbereswill.com). He’s complex, he’s crafty, and his new book is a refreshing reason for reading.

Q: Will, you didn’t start out your professional career as a professional writer, did you? We want to know, what was the moment you knew you were going to walk this path? How long was the road?

A: I may be one of the few authors that didn’t dream of writing since they were young. I’m an engineer by degree, an environmental engineer by profession.

Two things happened in 2003. I spent a lot of time in China, just before and after SARS and in December of 2003 my aunt encouraged me to give writing a try. When I told her that I didn’t have anything to write about, my uncle suggested that I write what I know.

All the publicity about SARS got me wondering where these mysterious viruses originate (SARS, Bird Flu, Hanta Virus, Ebola and even the Spanish Flu back in 1918 and 1919.) Taking my uncle’s advice and my 15 years experience in the natural gas industry, much of it for a local company, Mississippi River Transmission Corporation, I meshed fact and fiction and the plot for “A Reason For Dying” was born.

I was still full of doubts about trying to write something until the late 2004 when I sat down with a friend, Tim Quarles, from Billings Montana. Tim is a part-time paleontologist and extremely knowledgeable in the field. We kicked around my ideas and the more he heard, the more excited he became. I remember the line he used, “Your plot is more plausible than Jurassic Park, and we all know how well that did.” That’s the moment I knew I was going to write.

I actually wrote my first chapter during the 2004 Christmas break. I finished the first draft on my 50th birthday, May 2005. The story has since gone through 15 major rewrites and though it seems like a long journey, I’m told that it all happened pretty quickly.

Q: Are you a St. Louisan? What is your favorite thing about St. Louis? What do you tell people when they ask about our city?

A: I was born and raised in St. Louis. I grew up in St. Hedwig’s Parish in South St. Louis. We moved to South County and I attended Mehlville High School (I’m a St. Louisan, so I have to tell you what high school I went to.) After graduating from the University of Missouri - Rolla, I moved to Kansas City for a few years, where I worked for a natural gas pipeline company. I moved back to St. Louis in 1984 and have been living in south county ever since.

Plain and simple, St. Louis is home. For someone who travels a lot, I find St. Louis to be that perfect combination of big city and small town. If it were a little closer to the mountains and beaches, it would be perfect. All my friends in China know about the Arch, the friendly people, Imo’s pizza and toasted ravioli. Try explaining toasted ravioli to a native Chinese.

Q:  Is there a story behind the  title “A Reason for Dying”?

A: The first title I thought of was “Deadly Strike,” but I never really liked it. One day I was trying to tell a friend about the plot and I mentioned that a lot of people in Cody, Wyoming and Billings, Montana were going to die by the end of the book. She asked me why they were dying and I didn’t want to give away any details, so I told her they died because I gave them a reason for dying. As soon as I heard myself say it, I knew I had the title.

Q: I hear that there are some striking similarities from a recent news story to your book. Would you elaborate on that?

A: Yes. Just recently, Dr. Bruce Ivins, an army doctor working at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute for Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) and living in Fredrick, Maryland committed suicide. It turns out that the FBI was closing in on him as the prime suspect in the Ameritrax case. Of course, Ameritrax is FBI’s codename for the anthrax letter investigation

that started in 2001, shortly after 9/11. Five people were killed and seventeen were injured in those attacks.

“A Reason for Dying,” starts with FBI Agent Laura Daniels leading the investigation of Amerithrax. Chapter two of the novel takes place in Fredrick, Maryland where an army doctor who works for USAMRIID is meeting with a terrorist cell leader to explain why he wasn’t able to steal more anthrax spores. I originally wrote that scene in early 2005. There are even more similarities to the real case, but it’s all explained in my book. I find it odd that the news story broke one week after my book was released.

Q: Where did your inspiration for the main characters originate?

A: I started with Brandon Styles, a paleontologist with a unique theory on the demise of dinosaurs. To some extent I modeled him after a St. Louis area geology professor I had in college, Dr. Bruce Stinchcomb. Dr. Stinchcomb had an enthusiasm about fossils that hooked me for life.

Laura Daniels, my protagonist, was described perfectly by one of my early readers, “an interesting mix of Dirty Harry and Daddy’s Girl.” She’s a woman forced to display a tough exterior in a man’s world. On the inside, though, she still has tender feelings and needs reassurance sometimes. I’ve been asked why I took on a female protagonist in a first book. Well, I have a wife and three daughters. I coached girl’s soccer and I’m comfortable with it. There is a whole lot of inspiration around my house. All I have to do is listen and observe. My favorite character is Dallas Wheeler. He’s an oil patch lifer with a great sense of humor. He is actually an amalgamation of some of my friends from Arkansas and Louisiana that used to work on my pipeline crew many years ago. He and Brandon have great chemistry together.

Q: Do you plan a series or is this a stand alone novel?

I’m working on the second Laura Daniels novel. It’s a completely different storyline. In “A Reason for Terror,” Laura is called upon to investigate another act of terrorism on U.S. soil. The owner of a large pharmaceutical firm is raising his only son to take over the family business, but in a brief moment of independence, the son decides to go to Iraq to fight in the war, where he is killed. The father snaps and decides to take matters into his own hands to end the war at all costs.

Q: Has the “author experience” been everything you expected? If not, what were the surprises?

A: I’ve found out that this is one of the hardest things I’ve ever done in my life. It’s hard to write 100,000 words that flow and move a plot forward. The research, the critiques, the voices in your head, the sleepless nights. It’s hard finding an agent and a publisher. And the snail’s pace of publishing is excruciatingly painful.

 It’s also extremely rewarding. To hear somebody discussing your work is amazing. It’s such a good feeling to know that something you’ve worked so hard to create can move someone emotionally.

Yes, even genre fiction can do that. I used to go into bookstores thinking it was just a department store for books. Now I enter a bookstore and I feel all the hard work and passion that goes into each and every book. I was thrilled when I received my first box of books in the mail. But, I don’t think the full force of my accomplishment hit me until I entered Main Street Books in St. Charles on my “Launch Day.”

Seeing the display in the window and on the shelves was overwhelming. I just received my first “FAN” e-mail from a nice lady I met at Big Sleep Books. I was on Cloud 9 to hear that she read the last 100 pages in one sitting. She said, “Michael Phelps had to take a back seat to you…” All that hard work was worth that one sentence.

Q:What advice do you have to offer to the new writer? The struggling or discouraged writer?

A: Read, Write and Listen. That may seem trite, but it gets at the heart of becoming a writer. Read what interests you and draw from that. There’s no infringement to mimic the style of your favorite author. It won’t take long and you’ll develop your own voice.

Write a lot and seek feedback. Read your work aloud or get someone to read it to you. You’ll be amazed at the nuances you notice.

Listen to people qualified to give you feedback. You can chase your tail forever listening to everybody, but, you still need to listen. And finally, don’t give up. You hear “Perseverance” as the mantra of writers.

Perseverance however is not the same as Stubbornness. You need to seek advice of qualified people and listen. Be willing to accept advice and consider suggestions and rewrite. If criticism hurts your feelings, you should seriously reconsider writing as a career.