Bill Denton is a native of Raleigh, NC, who spent his formative years in Southeast Arkansas.
His first foray into suspense/horror/supernatural fiction came in the ninth grade
with a short story titled The Silence. It was the tale of a young man trying to
keep his fear in check as he makes his way across a graveyard on a dark night. He
almost makes it, but trips and falls on a broken bottle. It closes with the line
“As the scarlet ribbon begins to flow the silence rules again”. This earned him
both an “A” and, needless to say, a trip to the guidance counselor’s office.
Prior to embarking on his full-time writing career, Bill pursued a variety of occupations.
In high school he flipped hamburgers while playing drums in local rock and roll bands.
Following high school, Bill became a disc jockey, working at radio stations throughout
the South and on the East Coast. He also honed his fiction writing skills by scripting
radio advertisements.
As times changed in the radio industry disc jockeys were losing the freedom to be
individually creative. So Bill shifted gears and began working as a designer/salesman
in the civil engineering and fire protection industries. There he also wrote construction
specifications, developing an ability to get to the point and tell it straight.
With the coming of personal computers, Bill again changed direction, becoming a
programmer and one of the first Internet developers. While creating
computer software and user manuals, he had the opportunity to work in a variety of
styles in order to write instructions suited to a wide range of readers.
Through all of the twists and turns Bill’s life has taken, he has always written.
Short stories, songs (lyrics and music), whatever format best fit the demands of
the particular muse he was satisfying.
Finally, Bill decided that writing full-time was the career he was destined for,
and as he puts it, “I spent three years learning how to write a novel, and one year
doing it”.
The result was Welcome to New Tipton, Bill Denton’s first novel. He also wrote
a novella, Fortune Cookies, as a side project during the gestation period of
Welcome to New Tipton.
Bill recently completed his second novel, Surfer Girls.
He is currently writing his third novel, 1340 N Lakeshore Drive, and
is doing preliminary work on his forth novel, Flying to Yesterday.
Bill believes that the greatest writing asset he has is all of the people who have
passed through his life. “You take part of this person, part of that person, and
put them in a story you have lived yourself or watched someone else live, and you
can’t help but end up with a compelling read”.
In addition to writing, Bill continues to enjoy playing drums and guitar, and still
plays with computers from time to time. He has a son who shares his musical talents.
Bill Denton now lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania with his wife Leslie, the woman he calls “my rock, my
inspiration, my life.” His family is rounded out by his human son, several plastic dinosaurs, a
plastic elephant, a stuffed toy clownfish named “Nemo”, and a miniature dachshund named "Theodore".
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