Ben R. Williams is emphatic: For Alison “is [Andy Parker’s] book through and through. Andy wrote the entire rough draft manuscript, then I went through it and polished it up, editing a few things, cutting others, rephrasing sentences for clarity, and adding the occasional flourish. … I’m somewhere between an editor and a co-writer, though slightly closer to the editor end of the spectrum.”
For Alison (from Apollo Publishers) is getting quite a national push from Amazon these days and Williams and Parker will sign copies Saturday at 1 p.m. at Book No Further at its new location in downtown Roanoke, 110 Market Street.
Williams is a Roanoke College graduate who spent a summer in the Hollins Playwriting program. Program director Todd Ristau says, “I am constantly hoping that we can find the scholarship money and that he can find the time away from work to come back and finish the degree. He is, hands down, one of the finest writers to ever come through the program.”
Williams has been involved in No Shame Theatre since 2007 and has written for Overnight Sensations “seven or eight times.” Several of his plays have been presented in Roanoke at Mill Mountain Theatre and Studio Roanoke and he has published several books, including three-day novels (a competition), which are Amazon Kindle publications. For Alison is his first work of non-fiction (other than his newspaper work).
Helping Parker pull together a book about Parker’s journalist daughter’s murder on camera from his first draft “was extremely difficult,” says Williams. “I liken it to a jeweler who takes a raw ruby and cleans it up, polishes it and cuts it. It is still the same original ruby” but it is more finished. The team took two years to finish the book.
Alison’s 2015 death—along with the murder of her camera operator—was a national sensation and Andy Parker has become a leading voice for gun control, leaving his career as a corporate headhunter. He was on national TV the night of the murder lobbying for gun control.
Williams met Parker as a Martinsville Bulletin reporter (he has since become the Science Administrator of the Virginia Natural History Museum in Martinsville). Parker was advocating for weekend power generation as a member of the Henry County Board of Supervisors and officials at the Philpott Dam “finally announced it would begin generating on weekends,” says Williams.
Less than 24 hours after they met, Alison lay dead at Bridgewater Plaza and “since I had a pre-existing relationship with Andy—and his wife Barbara, whom I’ve known for 10-plus years—my editor asked me to cover the shooting and reach out to the Parkers. I did my first sit-down interview with Andy the Saturday after Alison was killed, and I did at least a dozen subsequent interviews with Andy and Barbara in the weeks, months and years following.”
They became friends “and when he was approached by a literary agent and asked to present a pitch for a book, I helped him to craft the pitch letter,” says Williams. “That was about two years ago. A year later (there were some delays) I wrote the 40-page book proposal, and now, after a lot of hard work, the book is finally out.”
Amazon’s blurb on the book reads, “Parker shares his work as a powerhouse battling gun violence and gives a plan for commonsense gun legislation that all sides should agree on. He calls out the NRA-backed politicians blocking the legislation, shares his fight against ‘truthers,’ who claim Alison’s murder was fabricated, and reveals what’s ahead in his fight to do whatever it takes to stop gun violence.”
About the Writer:
Dan Smith is an award-winning Roanoke-based writer/author/photographer and a member of the Virginia Communications Hall of Fame (Class of 2010). His blog, fromtheeditr.com, is widely read and he has authored seven books, including the novel CLOG! He is founding editor of a Roanoke-based business magazine and a former Virginia Small Business Journalist of the Year (2005).
