Author Interview

World of Writing - Author Interview

Regular readers are aware that we enjoy conversing with other writers, learning from their experiences and understanding their work from a 'behind-the-scenes' view. Today we are joined by author William H. Koenecke - a retired university professor from Murray State University. He holds five degrees and has 45+ years of educational experience. During his life-long career he has taught at three different universities. His most recent book release (May 2021) is: Study Smarter, Not Harder: Over 77 Ways to Improve Your Study Skills in Just Minutes A Day. Don't forget to check out his first book: Write Well Right Now. 

Q: What were some of the challenges you faced in writing your books?

A: It took me nearly seven years to research and write my first book titled “Write Well Right Now: A Guidebook on English Grammar, Punctuation, and Writing.”

 
For many years, I wanted to write a book; however, I was busy with several principalships, and earning four of my five university degrees while doing the duties required of being a successful principal.

I left the principalship and taught part-time at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, IL while earning my Ph.D. in Educational Administration. After earning my Ph.D. I served in three different Illinois school districts as their superintendent of schools before accepting a one-year visiting professorship at Illinois State University in Normal, IL in school law, collective bargaining, and personnel administration. After that I was hired at Murray State University in Murray, KY. I taught in the College of Education for eleven years and retired in 2012. During five of the eleven years I was busy teaching and working toward earning my tenure. So, from year six until I retired in 2012 - I spent any extra time researching and writing my book. From 2012 until 2017, I finished the research, wrote the actual final book, and published it with IngramSpark in 2017. It is available on Amazon.com as both a print book and an eBook. So, the first problem was the lack of time until I retired in 2012.

The next problem was a heath issue that was presented to me about the time I finished the book. I was told by a cardiologist that I only had one year to live plus or minus one month! I didn’t accept his diagnosis and several other cardiologists and ended up at Centennial Hospital in Nashville, TN. The doctor at Centennial looked at my records and didn’t agree with the first diagnosis. And I had a “Ton” of heart tests that I didn’t know existed and apparently the first cardiologist didn’t know existed either! To make a long story short – I was misdiagnosed, and my heart was not nearly as bad as I was first told. So, it’s almost four years since I was told I only one year to live! I’m now seventy-five years old, and my doctor in Nashville thinks I may live even longer! However, he reminds me there are no guarantees as to how long any person will live – especially at the age of seventy-five. So, the second problem was and is health.


The third problem, especially my first book was that I was not an English major in undergraduate school. My majors were chemistry & biology. I had a minor in physics and a secondary teaching certificate in chemistry, biology, and physics. So, I was told numerous times by book publishers, English teachers, and others that I didn’t have the credentials to write an English grammar, punctuation, and writing book! So, the third problem was that I didn’t have the credentials to write my first book!


Q: Tell us a little about what led to your career in writing... have you co-written anything or worked with an agent or publicist?

A:  I’ve not been an agent, publicist, or a co-writer. However, I’ve been very satisfied with my career! I have over 45+ years in the field of education. I started my career as a high school chemistry teacher at twenty years of age. After three years, I was employed as the junior-senior high school principal at a small Illinois school district (about 300 students). At the age twenty-six I moved to a larger high school in Illinois (about 500 students). At the age of thirty, I moved to a larger high school (about 1,000 students). These were all principal positions. At the age of thirty-four, I accepted my first superintendent of schools in a small district in Illinois (about 400 students). My next superintendent stop was a larger school district of approximately 1,500 students It was a wealthy school district with a surplus of approximately 2.5 million dollars – most of my previous districts were in terrible financial shape. I was responsible for investing this surplus money in legal places of my choice! My next stop was a one-year visiting law professor at Illinois State University (ISU) at Normal, Illinois. After that I earned a second master’s degree from ISU in Industrial Technology and Training Development. After that degree, I worked for Johnson Controls in Peoria, Illinois for about eighteen months in selling performance contracts to school districts located near their Peoria Office. These were HVAC and energy savings projects that Johnson Controls financed over a 10-to-15-to-20-year period of time with the school district making payments to Johnson Controls from their savings of heat and electric costs as a result of the efficiency of new HVAC equipment and more efficient energy equipment replacing outdated and inefficient heating, cooling, and new lighting fixtures, etc. These contracts were VERY expensive and seldom, if ever, did the energy savings over the life of the performance contract exceed the amount the school district paid to Johnson Controls during the term of the contract because each year the price of energy increased, and the amount of savings decreased! The only advantage I saw was that the school district didn’t have to pass a tax issue to pay for the cost of installing the equipment! However, the taxpayers of the school still paid for the cost - plus a 10% profit to Johnson Controls. And in some cases, the school districts were broke and their HVAC and furnaces were in terrible shape! And it was a way to update their equipment and save some energy costs using the newer equipment. Johnson Controls decided to decrease their sales force, and I was given a choice to quit or be fired! I quit and have nothing but good thing to say about Johnson Controls. They were and are a huge company and I had excellent benefits and was treated well during my time with them! My final stop was Murray State University (MSU) and I taught in the College of Education for the final eleven years of my 45+ years in education. I received my B.S. from MSU in 1967 and my mother taught at MSU for 28 years. She was a teacher and was the chair of the MSU Home Economics department for most of those years. After I retired in 2012, I became a published author and a self-publisher with IngramSpark in La Vergne, TN.


Q: What are some of your favorite writers’ resources?

A: One of my favorite resources was the Murray, Kentucky Author Support Group I started with a retired English professor from Murray State University soon after I retired in 2012. We had approximately twenty-eight people attend the first meeting held in the Murray Calloway County Public Library’s meeting room on a Saturday. We ended up with about eight people who attended future meetings on a regular basis. We had two experienced authors who were retired English professors from Murray State University (MSU) in our group who shared valuable information to those of us who were not published authors but wanted to become authors in the future. One retired author had successfully published 15 to 20 books and the other author had successfully published approximately 35 books. Their advice was free and very useful to the others in the group. Several of us did become first-time published authors as a result of their knowledge about writing and publishing knowledge. In addition, we had guest speakers at some of the meetings. There are several authors in our community and several current and/or retired MSU professors are book authors. I had to resign from the group because of health issues and because of covid, we suspended meetings for now. We tried zoom meetings and only three people attended three zoom meetings.

I’m a slow typist and I’m using “Dictate” 365 Office Voice Recognition software to “talk” the vast majority of the book into typed text in my second book titled “Study Smarter, Not Harder: Over 77 Ways to Improve Your Study Skills in Just Minutes A Day.” I previously used Dragon Voice Recognition software part of the time but found that it did not do a good job of changing my “talk” to the correct text I wanted in a document! So far, I find that “Dictate” does a much better job!

Another source is Grammarly.com that checks your spelling, edits, corrects grammar, punctuation, and more tasks to make you a better writer. There is a free version and a pro version that can be purchased online. There are several other similar products that you may want to check out that are available on the internet.
Finally, the internet can be a valuable “free” tool for authors and writers. It’s not totally free because you have to pay a monthly Internet Service Provider (ISP) fees and perhaps, other fees to be able to use the world wide web. You can conduct research, use the dictionary, read blogs, look at YouTubes videos, and a plethora of other sources. However, almost anything can be placed on the internet and may not be completely correct! So be careful to double check the information with other sources.

Q: What inspired you to write?

A: When I was in early grade school, we could not afford a television and I attended a one-room school of eight grades with one teacher! So, early on I became an avid reader both in school and at home. And one of my aunts was a high school English teacher in a large St. Louis, MO high school. In addition to teaching, she was an author. After my dad passed away when I was nine years old, she was a mentor to my mother and myself. So, she inspired me to get an education and become a teacher. I was busy teaching and becoming an administrator, but I still had the desire to write a book someday. When I became a school superintendent, one of my goals was to hire the best possible teachers for our schools. And I decided that I would require all teacher applicants for our district to be screened by me. I would select the top applicants based on their credentials and conduct the first interviews. Then I would select the top two or three candidates and the principal of the school where the vacancy was located, would conduct the second interview. Together we would select the best one for the position.

I was appalled at the significant number of candidates who either didn’t know correct grammar and/or punctuation or didn’t take the time to proof their application materials before sending them to me for review! I required a brief hand-written essay of approximately 200 words with a choice of three topics – usually one of the choices was their philosophy of education. Sometimes, I provided a scenario of a situation that could/may occur in a classroom similar to the one for which the candidate was applying for. The candidate was asked to describe how he/she would handle that situation! Reading these writing samples was very revealing to me in MANY ways!

I would say that my experience in teaching the first course in the teacher education program was the deciding reason I decided to write an English grammar, punctuation, and writing book. First, let me say that some of my students were GREAT writers using proper grammar, punctuation, and good written communication skills. However, a significant number of these students - some who wanted to become English teachers – were less than adequate in these critical skills. The sad thing was they didn’t think it was important to improve in these areas! And many of these same students told me their most recent English grammar class was in junior high school. They said their high school teachers told them that grammar was not important – it was the content of the writing piece that was important. And you could hire someone to correct the grammar and the punctuation. And the English department at MSU didn’t require a grammar class for a major in English! There was one elective grammar course that was never full. As far as I know that is still true today! Perhaps, it’s taught in other classes. If so, they need to stress grammar more in these classes because several of my future English teachers were not adequate in these skills.

Q: How long will we wait for your next book? What are your current projects?

A: My second book is almost finished and is scheduled to be out in May of 2021. The title of the book is “Study Smarter, Not Harder: Over 77 Ways to Improve Your Study Skills in Just Minutes A Day.”

There will be a print book available and an eBook available on Amazon.com at a price of $14.95 and $4.99 respectively. One of the chapters in the book is titled “Advice From Experts.” Approximately forty people have submitted practical tip(s)/suggestion(s) they actually used to study smarter, not harder to become successful in their chosen careers. This is a cross-section of students, teachers, professors, authors, an attorney, a medical doctor, a C.P.A., a pharmacist, and others.

The rest of the book will be a plethora of information that either supports these forty tips/suggestions and/or adds additional tips/suggestions that will help anyone become more efficient in studying, earning higher grades, and reaching his/her full potential. Studying is akin to most things in life! That is, “One-Size-Does-Not-Fit-All.” So, if you are pleased with your present study habits, why would you change! Perhaps, you may want to try a few new ones that may improve how your study. Now, if you are not doing well and you want to do better – what do you have to lose? Of course, you don’t want to throw the baby out with the bath wash! So, try a few suggestions that you believe may work for you! If they don’t work – stop and try other tips and suggestions.

I don’t have any “perfect” suggestions that work for every person! And I do not know of any tips/suggestion that do not involve some amount of work! However, there are numerous work smarter, not harder tips/suggestions in the book that will decrease the amount of work required to do well. 

Your positive attitude and wanting to do well is a major key in anything you do. If you think you can do something, you can! If you think you can’t do something, you can’t do it! Either statement is correct – it depends on you!

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