Gary D. Williamson
A Short Biography
Born London’s East End in January 1954, I have worked in London as a Laboratory Scientist in the field of Bacteriology for more than forty years, first with the Ministry of Defence in the Scientific Civil Service and subsequently for the National Health Service. More than twenty years were spent in the Microbiology Laboratory of the world famous St. Mary’s Hospital in Paddington. I have lived in London and the surrounding suburbs for over forty years.
Karen and I married in 1985 and have two children.
Since I was about ten I have had a desire to write. My wife told me I’d write when I retired and I plan to do so. My first idea for a novel came in the early nineties, and I formulated it in my mind whilst training for marathons. I wrote over half of it. It now needs a major overall but the plot and characters are all there. That project was shelved, but will be resurrected and it is my intention to publish it as a third or fourth novel.
I have run nineteen full marathons including the London Marathon eight times, once in fancy dress, raising around eight thousand pounds for various charities over eight years. I attained a World ranking (around 230th) in the 1995 World Trail Running Championships by completing the 80-mile run across England’s South Downs. I completed the “Tough Guy” challenge three times. I was forced to retire from running in 2002, due to a long-standing knee injury.
Currently when not writing I go fishing and also study Iaido, the ancient Japanese martial art of drawing the sword. I attained my 2nd Dan in 2012 and am working towards achieving my 3rd Dan whilst attempting to learn sufficient Japanese to help with these studies.
My other interests include photography, music and cinema.
I travelled around Western Europe during the early 1980s by motorcycle and wrote articles for “Motorcycle Weekly”.
I have visited the Kruger National Park in South Africa, Israel, Turkey, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Mauritius, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Sumatra, Morocco, Thailand, Belize, Guatemala, Rajasthan in India, Myanmar (Burma) and most recently Hong Kong and Taiwan
As a child I lived for three years in Menlo Park, California as my father worked for Ampex in Redwood City, we came back to England in 1960. I have returned to the States visiting Virginia, which ignited an interest in the American Civil War to the point where I wanted to study an aspect of it but my thesis proposal on the social impact if the Confederates had won at Gettysburg and there had been a negotiated end to the war was rejected. I also went to Florida in 1997 on a family vacation.
As for this novel the idea came to me in the late summer of 2011, I have now written over two thirds of it. People ask what is it about and I respond by telling them that I have now killed eighty five per cent of the World’s population. The story has no plot, no defined beginning middle and but has an end, though it does follow a time line. It is the journal of a survivor, their thoughts, actions and memories, set in a future post apocalyptic America. I get ideas and scrawl a few lines then blend them into the story, creating it as I go. Sometimes a simple idea or a fact discovered will lead the central character into a new area. I do know where it ends as I have written the final chapter; I just have to get there.
The second novel is roughly planned and will be a turbulent, erotic and violent love triangle.
An idea for a third concerns the aftermath of a drone attack going wrong, and the subsequent story of revenge. It should keep me busy for the next decade.
Recently I had the idea for a fifth novel, which I may attempt to write as a play, and also I invented a character that I need to flesh out.
My photograph was taken by Stuart Franklin, former President of Magnum Photos, and world renown for his photograph of the “Tank Man in Tianamen Square”, which has been listed in the top forty of the most powerful photographs ever taken. He is a friend and fellow Leonard Cohen fan. His work can be seen at www.stuartfranklin.com
