About the Author:
George Roland Wills is 58 years old as of May the 15, 2020. He was born in Roanoke, Virginia and he is an author and a film maker. His movie making concern is in the creation of documentaries, creating videos of Civil War reenactments, and making his own type of motion pictures.
To date he has made two such two hour motion pictures; the 2005 release of Avenel the Motion Picture and the 2007 release The Great Sacrifice of President Jefferson Davis. George got the idea for making his own films from Clint Eastwood and his Malpaso Studio. He has written, directed, starred in, and produced his own films, as well as using the same reenactors over and over again, in the very style of Mr. Eastwood.
"That works well," says George, "using the same people over and over again; you get their range and their depth. A scum bag riverboat gambler, Notorious Portefoy, then becomes young Jefferson Davis in the next movie. One of Mr. Eastwood's methods of operation, as I have seen in any number of his films."
George made his two major films in the time just before the hi def smart phone cameras and his first computer.
"Oh, to be making those films now!," he says, "when I made those first two movies, I did not even have a computer. No voice overs were even possible. The sound is rough! I finally got a Mac and some hi def cameras on my Galaxy smart phones. My latest Amazon released meditation videos look and sound fantastic. My motion pictures, not so much."
The death of his father in 2008 and the death of his brother in 2017, both from cancer, has curtailed his motion picture film making in recent times.
George has five four hundred page 'trunk' novels, one of which was The Pursuit of Sundown, his only western to date. These novels date from 1989 to 1992.
To date he also has two novellas, written after 2008.
These are the grotesquely-styled To Sir, With Love and the almost autobiographical Summer Lovers.
George has also published an anthology of short stories dating back to 1984, called The November Country.
One of those stories is the stand alone book, An Afternoon with Mr. Jefferson, a time travel short story about a young girl who meets her hero, Thomas Jefferson, during a visit to his Poplar Forest home.
George is not only a tour docent at Poplar Forest, but his great-great-great-great-great grand uncle was actually the third president, Thomas Jefferson.
Mary Jefferson, Thomas Jefferson's older sister, was in fact George's gr(5) grandmother on his paternal grandmother's side.
His poetry anthology, Seven-Thirty Thursday, contains a great number of his poems, including some which have won cash awards in national competitions.