WOODROW WILSON HIGH SCHOOL Alumni
PORTLAND, OREGON
ALUMNI SPOTLIGHT
FIRST NOVEL CREATES A STORY THAT THE READER HAS NEVER SEEN BEFORE
Wilson's Class of 1964 John Pattillo's first novel, Sovereign, in three parts, introduces characters and events unlike any you have ever encountered. It is available on Amazon.com. Set in a foreign, strife-torn land, and then in America, two brothers' lives turn from hero-worship to a deadly contest. What could drive these two to become mortal enemies? Can either survive as an individual? You have heard the story of the unrecognized artistic genius, but what of the genius recognized too well...recognized and envied. Why should his brilliant talent be hostage to lethal seeds sown in his childhood? How could two brothers, so different, both love the same woman? How could she be attracted to each? Why would the clash of an individual against his race tear a family apart? Do you owe your life to your race? Do you owe your life to your family? What do you owe to yourself? What is an individual? What ideas create individualism in a man's soul and in a culture? What ideas create racism? What is the nature of the clash between individualism and its opposite, racism? What will happen when a young woman discovers that the man she had worshipped is a monster? -- when a man discovers that he has given up the woman who should have been his? -- when a woman who had seduced a man discovers that she has defiled not just her body but her soul? -- when a woman must choose between her husband and her two sons? -- when a man's two brothers oppose everything he stands for? -- when a father must choose between two sons? Read Sovereign to discover the answers to these questions.
John believes that it is an author's job to create a story that the reader has never seen before. The third of five children, John was born in San Antonio, Texas, and grew up in McAllen, San Juan, and Portland, Oregon. After Wilson, he added Hartford, Princeton, Chicago, and Baltimore, while receiving Bachelors and Masters degrees in philosophy from Princeton and Roosevelt University. A painter and sculptor, he teaches artistic anatomy at the Schuler School of Fine Arts in Baltimore, an invaluable aid in creating the novel - Sovereign - about a brilliant painter whose greatest enemy is his half-brother. John wrote copy for the "Sales Literature and Graphics" Department of Pratt & Whitney Aircraft and, after becoming a ballroom dance champion, wrote articles on current issues in ballroom dancing for the national monthly, Dance Beat. His Towson Dance Studio, which he owns and operates with his wife Barbara, is one of the most respected in the world of ballroom dancing. To learn more about Sovereign and his approach to writing, visit http://windswift.net/.
When asked about his time at Wilson, John states emphatically, "that the teachers and the whole educational atmosphere I experienced at Wilson were the most inspiring I ever encountered before or since. I have remarked to many people in the intervening years how much I felt that the Wilson teachers were a very dedicated group whose love and enthusiasm for their subjects leaped out at us in every class. In particular, I remember Mrs. Ashley, Mrs. Meihoff, Mr. Stallings, Ms. Dodge, Ms. Bartell, Mr. Warner, Mr. Pacheco, Mr. Miller, Mr. Guffy, Mr. Larsen. All of these, and others, too, fit the description above of dedicated, inspiring teachers.
His advice to current Wilson students is to read, read, read. "Never will it be a waste of your time. And start looking now for those things that you love to do, to be involved in, that will challenge you, and fulfill your unique talents - even if they are careers or activities that you never thought of, or that friends or parents might not think are "proper" careers. To be loyal to that irreplaceable value which is your self is not always easy, but you will never regret it. This is (approximately) what I said to my classmates in a graduation speech 46 years ago, and I have not changed my mind since then." To catch up on what else John has been doing since Wilson, go to: http://windswift.webs.com/author.htm.