Belleville, Bill 1945-

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BELLEVILLE, Bill 1945-

PERSONAL:

Born 1945; given name, William Belleville.

ADDRESSES:

Home—201 Sewell Rd., Sanford, FL 32771. Agent—c/o University of Georgia Press, 330 Research Dr., Athens, GA 30602-4901. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Journalist, filmmaker, and diver. Wrote and coproduced documentary In Search of Xanadu, 1996; produced Wekiva: Legacy or Loss?, 2000.

WRITINGS:

(And producer, with Bob Giguere) In Search of Xanadu (script), Equinox Documentaries (Orlando, FL), 1996.

River of Lakes: A Journey on Florida's St. Johns River, University of Georgia Press (Athens, GA), 2000.

Deep Cuba: The Inside Story of an American Oceanographic Expedition, University of Georgia Press (Athens, GA), 2002.

Contributor to The Wild Heart of Florida: Florida Writers on Florida's Wildlands, edited by Jeff Ripple and Susan Cerulean, University Press of Florida, 1999. Contributor to periodicals and Web sites, including Away.com, Discovery Channel Online, Sierra Magazine, Oxford American, Islands, and Salon.com. Former editor of Rodale's Scuba Diving.

SIDELIGHTS:

Bill Belleville is a journalist who writes about travel, adventure, and environmental topics. His books include River of Lakes: A Journey on Florida's St. Johns River and Deep Cuba: The Inside Story of an American Oceanographic Expedition, and he has also produced film documentaries on water ecosystems in Florida.

His first book, River of Lakes, focuses on the central Florida waterway near which he lives. A Publishers Weekly reviewer described the book as a "short but dense tribute to Florida's longest river," and it includes historic and scientific information about the area's animal and plant life, as well as Belleville's personal observations of the river. He spent more than two years traveling and documenting the region in preparation for writing River of Lakes. Noting that nearly 3.5 million people live within the river management district, Belleville told an interviewer for Streamlines, "It struck me that a lot of people knew the river in pieces. I thought maybe it was time to bring those pieces together to a larger whole." According to a review in Kirkus Reviews, "Belleville reveals the waterway's exotic voluptuousness … in writing that is silvery and appealingly unrehearsed." Joe Collins in Booklist further commented that while Belleville includes detailed scientific and historic information in the volume, for the most part it is a relaxed, "Mark Twainlike excursion downriver." In a Library Journal review, Kathleen Arsenault called it "knowledgeable and compelling."

Deep Cuba recounts Belleville's experiences during a month-long diving expedition. He went with a crew of documentary filmmakers commissioned by the Discovery Channel to study the waters of Cuba. During the trip, Belleville provided updates on the expedition for Discovery Channel Online and responded to e-mail sent by people who followed the exploits of the crew via the Web site. In the volume, Belleville describes the political and logistical hurdles faced in mounting the expedition, as well as his impromptu meeting with Fidel Castro and his observations on Cuban life. Margaret Rioux wrote in a Library Journal review that "Belleville doesn't seem to have had a specific purpose in mind." However, a commentator in Kirkus Reviews called the work "engaging," and concluded that Belleville "provides significant material about the scientists' work on bioluminescence, fish inventories, and deep-sea exploration."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, February 15, 2000, Joe Collins, review of River of Lakes: A Journey on Florida's St. Johns River, p. 1075.

Kirkus Reviews, December 15, 1999, review of River of Lakes, p. 1926; July 15, 2002, review of Deep Cuba: The Inside Story of an American Oceanographic Expedition, pp. 1002-03.

Library Journal, February 1, 2000, Kathleen Arsenault, review of River of Lakes, p. 111; September 15, 2002, Margaret Rioux, review of Deep Cuba, p. 87.

Publishers Weekly, February 14, 2000, review of River of Lakes, p. 189.

Rodale's Scuba Diving, December, 2002, interview with Bill Belleville, p. 20.