About William T. Torgerson
Essayist and Fiction Writer Searching for Logic in an Absurd World
My name is William T. Torgerson, and I’m admitting, publicly, that I’m a writer.
I know, right? This guy looks like he might even be sane. Alas, my friend, it was never to be.
Throughout my life, I’ve escaped into my mind.
As a kid, we’d have these long road trips back to Alabama, where most of my extended family still lives. Driving sixteen hours from Massachusetts to northern Alabama, my mind would drift on the implications of the music as one radio station faded and my parents tuned into another. Was I in a tense thriller? Let’s be real, I was a pretty introspective (moody) kid. More often than not, it was a sad shot of me looking out the window with a slow zoom out. Cinematic stuff, eh?
That’s not the word that most people used. That was “dramatic”, a word that still sends a spike through my lizard brain.
Mr. Serious over here was a mask I developed over years of pretending to be good. The dichotomy of that lifestyle grows like black mold on drywall. I was a house with great curb appeal and soggy studs.
I did alright, until I had a low-level breakdown. My own personal demolition, a full-on “muck and gut” as we say in Texas. I’m still working on the rebuilding part.
The last six years has seen a lot of progress in my remodel. Some walls taken down, some put up. The reading nook overlooking the idea garden is coming along nicely. Many choices weren’t right, but I worked to see the lesson in them or laugh through the tears. Imagine painting studs before drywall was installed - you can berate your stupidity, or you can take a picture and share a laugh with someone you care about.
I rediscovered writing through a good friend at Artimorean, a strange indie publishing company out of Austin. He send me a few pages of paragraphs that lit my brain on fire. I sent him back 20 pages.
That particular work has taken a back seat. We both need a lot of time to make it into what it deserves to be. In the meantime, I’ve written almost every day since.
Notes on the marginI feel extremely lucky for the critique partners I’ve made, and for everyone who has read any of my words. If you want to watch my craft evolve, enjoy slanted takes on an absurd reality, or escaping into worlds that make you think, laugh, and feel, then join in my journey.
Explore my philosophical essays in my weekly publication 30 Degree Shift, check out the short stories I periodically put out, or if you’re feeling generous you can fuel the insanity.
If you’re new, you can find everything you need here.
From Beyond the Rift,
