Bill Wheatley

The book I published most recently is "Little Joe," the story of Josef Filipovic's life as a boy and young man in Europe during World War 2. Our collaboration was a long process but the book has turned out to be "a wonderful read", as several readers have commented.

The short paragraph on the back of the book describes the story: "Growing up in a Dutch coal mining town during World War 2, Josef Filipovic survived two years in a forced labor camp and an enemy even worse than the Nazis--his own father. What he calls his youthful adventure is one bold escape after another, until he finally makes it to America." It wasn't easy for Joe to describe many of the extreme "adventures" he lived through, especially his life at home with his almost insanely brutal father. The anguish of remembering is what made the book so hard for Joe to do. But other stories he savored re-living, and he kept insisting that his story was really a comedy. It was a comedy if by that one means it ends happily, because almost miraculously he survived his father, the Nazis, the chaos of war and its aftermath, and got to America.

Joe and I met in 1970, when we were both working in film production at WGBH television in Boston. He was one of the top documentary film editors and I was a young kid getting into the business. I continued working in free lance filmmaking and Joe and I remained friends, very good friends, until his death in 2012. Working on the book has been one of the richest experiences of my life, an immersion in some of the most momentous events of the 20th century in the company of an unusually courageous, perceptive, and resourceful participant.

The other books listed here include a book of rather off-beat, irreverent poems, a children's story, and a novel-length fable. Very different from "Little Joe," similar only in that they're all accessible, easy to read, and don't insult the intelligent reader. I've retired from television production and live in a small town in Massachusetts where I grow tomatoes and walk dogs.