Trotter, William R. (Jr.) 1943-

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TROTTER, William R. (Jr.) 1943-

PERSONAL: Born July 15, 1943, in Charlotte, NC; son of William R. Trotter, Sr., and Anne (Pease) Trotter; second marriage, August 19, 1982; children: three. Education: Davidson College, B.A., 1966.

ADDRESSES: Home—717 North Church St., Greensboro, NC 27401. Agent—Betsy Nolan, 50 West 29th St., New York, NY 10001.

CAREER: First Union National Bank, Charlotte, NC, technical publications editor, 1971-73; World Film Productions, Greensboro, NC, writer and director, 1973-77; City of Greensboro, director of Springfest Arts Festival, 1977-78; Peaches Records, buyer, 1978-81; WaldenBooks, Greensboro, bookseller, 1981-83; Platterpus Records, Greensboro, manager, 1983-85; writer and editor, 1985-88; Signal Research Corp., senior writer, 1988-92.

MEMBER: Authors Guild, Authors League of America, Leopold Stokowski Society.

AWARDS, HONORS: Arts and Letters Award, Finlandia Foundation, 1992.

WRITINGS:

Word Processing, American Management Association (New York, NY), 1974.

Life Begins at Forte: The Conductor as Musical Hobo (released serially), Leopold Stokowski Society, 1982-83.

(With Robert W. Newsom III) Deadly Kin: A True Story of Mass Family Murder, Signal Research (Greensboro, NC), 1988.

The Civil War in North Carolina, J. F. Blair (Winston-Salem, NC), Volume 1: Silk Flags and Cold Steel: The Piedmont, 1988, Volume 2: Bushwhackers!: The Mountains, 1989, Volume 3: Ironclads and Columbiads: The Coast, 1989.

A Frozen Hell: The Story of the Russo-Finnish War of 1939-1940, Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill (Chapel Hill, NC), 1991.

Winter Fire (novel), Dutton (New York, NY), 1993.

(With Gary Meredith and Selby Bateman) Ascendancy: The Offıcial Strategy Guide, Prima (Rocklin, CA), 1995.

Priest of Music: The Life of Dimitri Mitropoulos, Amadeus Press (Portland, OR), 1995.

Close Combat: Inside Moves, Microsoft Press (Redmond, WA), 1996.

The Sands of Pride: A Novel of the Civil War, Carroll & Graf (New York, NY), 2002.

Also author of "Desktop General" column in Game Player's PC Entertainment, 1988-92. Contributor to periodicals, including Deathrealm, Eldritch Tales, Sun, Twilight Zone's Night Cry, St. Andrews Review, and Red Clay Reader. Associate editor, Greensboro Sun, 1975-81; associate editor and book and music editor, Northstate Reader, 1980-83; contributing editor, North Carolina Independent, 1985-88; music editor and feature writer, Spectator, 1985-88; contributing editor, Carolina Piedmont, 1985-88.

SIDELIGHTS: William R. Trotter is a writer whose varied works include biography, fiction, and crime reporting. His earliest works include Life Begins at Forte: The Conductor as Musical Hobo, which was serialized by the Leopold Stokowski Society in the early 1980s, and—with Robert W. Newsom—Deadly Kin: A True Story of Mass Family Murder, which appeared in 1988. Seven years later he published Priest of Music: The Life of Dimitri Mitropoulos, an account of the Greek conductor who served as music director of the New York Philharmonic from 1949 to 1956. While contending that Priest of Music "is rather loosely written and a bit repetitious," Kurt Moses, in his American Record Guide appraisal, nonetheless considered the book a "fascinating biography." Further praise came from Bill Zakariasen, who hailed Priest of Music in an Opera News review as "extraordinary." He concluded that "Mitropoulos' blessed spirit has been done justice by Trotter's book." A Publishers Weekly critic concluded that Trotter's book is a "compassionate, judicious and moving portrait."

Among Trotter's other writings is The Sands of Pride, a novel about the lives of various individuals—both real and fictional—living in North Carolina during the Civil War. Margaret Flanagan described the novel in Booklist as "a page-turner, jam-packed with . . . adventure, romance, tragedy," and Book Page reviewer Lloyd Armour hailed Trotter's account as "magnificent" and "a gripping story of history."