What happens when a story finally leaves your hands?
That is the question sitting with me today.
Tonight at 7 PM, I will sit down with Americo Da Costa for my first conversation about my first published book, The Bogeyman Was Built: How America Manufactured a Monster, and the People Who Refused to Become It. RSVP NOW https://www.linkedin.com/events/takethestage-featuringwilliamro7479309826410549248/theater/
Even writing that sentence feels strange.
Because this book was never just a book to me. It was a question I could not stop asking. It was a door I kept walking past until one day I finally had the nerve to open it. Behind that door were stories, systems, memories, history, fear, survival, and the uncomfortable truth that sometimes the monsters we are taught to fear were built by the very hands asking us to be afraid.
That is what makes tonight feel different.
I am not showing up with an agenda or a pitch. I am showing up to sit across from Americo and have an honest conversation. The kind where we follow the questions wherever they lead, even if the answers are uncomfortable. The kind where we are both listening as much as we are speaking, trying to understand not just what happened, but how we came to believe the stories we were given.
Americo has been extraordinary in the way he has prepared for this conversation. The care, attention, and intention he has put behind this moment has honestly overwhelmed me. I have felt seen as an author, but more than that, I have felt that he understands the weight of the conversation we are about to have.
There are no questions off the table.
We will talk about the book. We will talk about fear. We will talk about the narratives people inherit without realizing they inherited them. We will talk about what happens when a person decides to stop accepting a story just because it was repeated loudly enough.
There may even be a surprise.
So tonight, I am asking you to show up not just for me, but for the conversation. Show up for Americo. Show up for the questions. Show up for the possibility that maybe some of what we were taught deserves to be examined under brighter light.
This is my first interview about my first published book.
I am nervous.
I am honored.
I am ready.
Tonight at 7 PM.
📘 The Bogeyman Was Built https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0H6HBMWXK
Thanks for reading,
William Rochelle, but you can call me Bill
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