Author & Speaker
TONI HAAS-WILLIAMS
I’ve completed novels and screenplays across several genres.
I’ve taught and mentored thousands of young people.
In this season of life, I’m devoted to writing stories that connect people to
positive, everyday acts.
Last year I finished TAKE FIRE, the first novel in my YA fantasy series, The Color of Fire. That novel is now in the process of submission, and I’m writing its sequel. The four kids in these books are completely real to me–I’ve known them for years. They’ve worn a lot of names and different faces, but you know them too. A dreamer, a genius, a thief, a victim of Cerebral Palsy, their odysseys are about coming together and living the best way they know how, the best way they can learn how, each in his or her peculiar way. I’m watching all four of them grow into their own kind of heroes right there on the pages before my eyes.
That’s what I love!
That’s what I can’t wait for readers to love!
I also worked with another writer and friend, Neal Johnson, to complete a screenplay based on the real life adventures of Robert Vincent Cappodano, a Vietnam War chaplain. He was a full-speed-ahead rebel who bucked every system except God’s and who faced combat with his soldiers and died saving as many lives as he could.
In the works are:
- HANG FIRE, the second novel in The Color of Fire series.
- A suspense novel about a woman whose advice is so insightful that people believe she’s divinely gifted… and she does seem to have every question answered but her own…
- A picture book series about a stubborn little boy who has to touch the simple truths before he believes them.
And, then, buried in a file I’ve labeled “Someday” is a manuscript that’s collected a handful of awards. I love it written the way it is, but I keep holding out for an unusual rewrite because I think it may have been “born” for a different kind of purpose— I have an affection for women my age who haven’t quit dreaming, who won’t relinquish romance or stop running risks. Empty-nest doesn’t equal empty life. The novel stashed under “Someday” is for those ladies. I just wonder how many of them would like a good read about a woman whose not twenty OR thirty OR forty but still has amazing twists in her journey… I’d LOVE for these women to reach out if a book like this has appeal.
ABOVE ALL, I love youth—young adults. The decade and a half between thirteen and twenty-eight is the most fascinating (not because I’d go back, but…) because these are the rollercoaster years when all the maybe’s of your childhood—when all of your dreams either die of starvation or turn into “tangibilities” — that marriage of ideas and abilities birthed into reality. I’ll never stop writing for young adults.
Finding paths through my own gritty places has convinced me that believing-God-for- better, coupled with determination to move forward and up will result in
healing, helping and hope. Anyone can turn a hole into wholeness by making other people their priority.
I believe we all face pinholes and potholes. How we address them says more about who we are than our birth certificates or our resumes. Learning to be menders and tenders quantifies our lives. All I can hope is that my words inspire someone to do life better, to do it the way God created us to.
