William R. Leibowitz has been practicing entertainment/media law in New York City for a number of
years. He has represented numerous
renowned recording artists, songwriters, producers and many of the leading
record companies, talent managers, merchandisers and other notable
entertainment businesses. At one point,
he was the Chief Operating Officer/General Counsel for the Sanctuary Group of
Companies, a U.K. public company
that was the largest ‘indie’ music company in the world (prior to its
acquisition by the Universal Music Group).
William has a Bachelor of Science degree from New York University (magna cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa) and a
law degree from Columbia University. He lives in the village of Quogue, New York with his wife, Alexandria, and dog,
George.
William wrote Miracle
Man because of its humanistic and spiritual messages and because he
feels that in our current times – when meritless celebrity has eclipsed
accomplishment and the only heroes are those based on comic books, the world
needs a real hero –and that, of course, is Robert James Austin, the protagonist
in Miracle Man. Miracle Man
won Best Thriller in the National Pacific Book Awards.
For More Information
- Visit William Leibowitz’s website.
- Connect with William on Facebook and Twitter.
- Visit William’s blog.
About the Book:
REVERED
REVILED REMARKABLE
The victim of an
unspeakable crime, an infant rises to become a new type of superhero.
Unlike any that
have come before him, he is not a fanciful creation of animators, he is
real.
So begins the saga
of Robert James Austin, the greatest genius in human history. But where did his extraordinary intelligence
come from?
As agents of
corporate greed vie with rabid anti-Western radicals to destroy him, an
obsessive government leader launches a bizarre covert mission to exploit his
intellect. Yet Austin’s greatest fear is not of this world.
Aided by two
exceptional women, one of whom will become his unlikely lover, Austin struggles against abandonment and
betrayal. But the forces that oppose him
are more powerful than even he can understand.
For More Information
- Miracle Man is available at Amazon.
- Pick up your copy at Barnes & Noble.
- Discuss this book at PUYB Virtual Book Club at Goodreads.
Q: Thank you for this
interview! I’d like to know more about
you as a person first. What do you do
when you’re not writing?
A: I’m a lawyer in
the entertainment business.
Q: When did you start
writing?
A: I started writing
fiction several years ago.
Q: As a published
author, what would you say was the most pivotal point of your writing life?
A: When Miracle Man
won the Best Thriller award that not only opened up a lot of doors for me, but
the award, coupled with an increasing number of terrific book reviews,
validated what I was doing and gave me confidence as an author.
Q: If you could go
anywhere in the world to start writing your next book, where would that be and
why?
A: I would go to Tibet. I was recently there and the place has such a
powerful spiritual quality that I think this would reflect in the writing.
Q: If you had 4 hours
of extra time today, what would you do?
A: I’d get on a
sailboat in Gloucester, MA
and sail to Marblehead.
Q: Where would you
like to set a story that you haven’t done yet?
A: Florence,
Italy.
Q: Back to your
present book, Miracle Man, how did
you publish it?
A: After speaking
with several lawyers who represent authors and then doing research, I decided
to self-publish Miracle Man because
the financial and marketing opportunities for new writers of fiction that were
once available from major publishers no longer are. I decided that I’d have more control by
self-publishing.
Q: In writing your
book, did you travel anywhere for research?
A:
While I didn’t have to travel for my research, I did need to do
extensive research because of the nature of the plot in Miracle Man. I researched two areas: (1) the
nature of human intelligence (particularly genius), and (2) diseases,
treatments, attempted cures—and the medical/scientific methodology relevant to
formulating cures. Regarding #1 – I researched the lives of actual geniuses so
that I could understand how genius manifests itself at various ages –and the
behaviors often attendant to genius.
Because Robert James Austin (the protagonist in Miracle Man) has an intelligence that is unique in human history
(i.e., 10X that of Einstein), I extrapolated from my research and “pumped up”
various things about Austin
so as to reflect his extraordinary abilities.
So while I highly magnified elements of Austin’s behavior
and thought processes –they are grounded in documented realities. Regarding the medical/scientific aspects of
the book, I didn’t want to ask the reader to take giant leaps of faith when
reading Miracle Man, so I knew that
in order for the story to be credible, it had to have a plausible scientific foundation
for the ways in which Austin
invented cures and the way that the cures worked. At the same time, however, I was mindful that
I had to minimize the science so that it didn’t bore the reader.
Q: Why was writing
Miracle Man so important to you?
A:
Miracle Man chronicles the
saga of Robert James Austin, the greatest genius in human history, from the
time of his birth and tragic childhood through his extraordinary
accomplishments in curing diseases. The
book is a psychological thriller with a fast paced twisting plot that’s full of
surprises and drama, as Austin battles abandonment and betrayal and the
myriad forces that seek to destroy him. In writing
Miracle Man, I wanted to create a modern day believable
‘super hero’ who is an ‘anti-celebrity’.
I thought that such a person could be inspirational when contrasted with
the meritless celebrities that dominate media today (e.g., the reality TV stars
who are famous for being famous, but have no real talent). I also wanted Miracle Man to be the vehicle
within which I could convey, in an entertainment context, certain spiritual and
humanistic messages that are important to me.
Q: Where do you get
your best ideas and why do you think that is?
A: I get my best
ideas when i lie down on the grass in my garden and look up at the sky. This allows me to “zone out” and just let my
imagination roam.
Q: Any final words?
A:
Yes. In writing Miracle Man, I wanted to get readers
thinking about a real-life problem that affects us all. One of the powerful
forces fighting my protagonist, Robert James Austin, is “Big Pharma” which
views Austin as their enemy since
he cures diseases and thereby makes many of their “cash-cow” drugs
obsolete. In short, Austin
is bad for their business. Like Austin,
I find it incomprehensible that virtually no major disease has been cured in
over 50 years. How can that be the case
when so much money has been spent over the decades on research? Simply put, there’s a lot more money in
treating symptoms than there is in curing diseases. Austin
realized that Big Pharma has no interest in curing diseases. It just wants to keep on selling expensive
symptom treatments –and as we know, many people are on ‘medication maintenance
programs’ for years, sometimes for life.
Austin wanted to change
that. Worth thinking about I believe.
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