Born and raised in the area of Mobile, Alabama, author J. William Lewis entered adolescence with the firm resolve to become a writer.  He began well enough, scribbling short pieces of poetry and long letters, and then he had a modest burst forward in college when he edited the literary magazine (to which he submitted short stories and poetry) and ultimately won the Merihl Award.  He proceeded to graduate from Spring Hill College, magna cum laude, in English and Philosophy. He reports that in the first semester of his senior year of college, two roads diverged in a yellow wood and, unlike Robert Frost, he took the one more travelled by, i.e., he decided to become a lawyer instead of a writer.  

He applied and was admitted to the School of Law at the University of Virginia and began the paper chase.  Fortunately for him, chasing paper came naturally and, accordingly, after the first semester he was pleasantly surprised to learn that he had achieved a rank of fifth in the class.  The initial success in law school provided a bit of momentum and he proceeded to join the Editorial Board of the Virginia Law Review which (another pleasant surprise) turned out to be his most enjoyable experience of law school. 

After three years of law school, Lewis was awarded a judicial clerkship on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, which turned out to be a remarkably rewarding and enjoyable experience, in part because it involved research and writing.  After the clerkship, he proceeded to Birmingham, Alabama, to begin the practice of law with a large and prestigious corporate firm.  His practice for the first approximately twenty years was in the tax and corporate area and then, for the last fifteen years, Lewis became what he describes as “a functionary on a litigation team.”  After almost thirty-five years of law practice, he hung up his shingle and returned to the area of endeavor he had intended to pursue at the beginning:  He directed his attention to the novel he had lovingly nurtured in his spare time while practicing law.  He and his wife live fairly comfortably in Shoal Creek, a private suburban community of Birmingham, where in the year 2020 he finished The Essence of Nathan Biddle, which was published on June 1, 2021.

Lewis is the CEO of the family investment company, Seaman Capital, LLC, but he continues to write when time and energy permit.  With regard to the inquiry about a sequel to The Essence of Nathan Biddle, his response is that time and inspiration will tell.  Few things, he says, have pleased him more than the requests for a sequel, and nothing would please him more than thrusting Kit Biddle out of adolescence and into the trials and tribulations – virtually all beyond the vexatious questions addressed in The Essence of Nathan Biddle – that await him in the world of manhood.