Nov. 5, 2024

From Bureaucrat to Bestseller Willie Handler's Transformative Writing Journey

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Join us for an inspiring episode of the Living the Dream podcast with Curveball as we sit down with author Willie Handler. Willie shares his transformative journey from working in the Ontario Public Service to becoming an accomplished writer. Discover how his memoir, inspired by his parents' experiences as Holocaust survivors, led him on a path of healing and introspection. We delve into the intricacies of intergenerational trauma, the origins of antisemitism, and the differences between writing fiction and nonfiction. Don't miss this enlightening conversation that uncovers hidden stories and the power of passion projects.
Want to be a guest on Living the Dream with Curveball? Send Curtis Jackson a message on PodMatch, here: https://www.podmatch.com/hostdetailpreview/1628631536976x919760049303001600

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> Curveball>Welcome, um, to the Living the Dream podcast with Curveball. Uh, if you believe you can achieve, cheat.

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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Welcome to the Living the Dream with Curveball podcast, a show where I interview guests that teach, motivate and inspire. Today we're joined by author Willie Handler. Willie has reinvented himself several times. He's worked in insurance and with the hospitals and all that kind of stuff. He retired from the Ontario Public Service and decided to pick up a writing career. So we're going to be talking to him about his story and all the things he's done in his life. So, Willie, thank you so much for joining me today.

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> Speaker C>Oh, thank you for having me.

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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Why don't you start off by telling everybody a little bit about yourself?

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> Speaker C>Okay. Um, I'm, uh, kind of person who likes to have lots of challenges and as we saw that kind of move around a bit. And uh, I started my career in the late 70s.

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> Speaker C>Um, I, I tried. I got a gr.

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> Speaker C>A graduate degree in hospital administration and I got a gig in the hospital.

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> Speaker C>And man, that was boring.

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> Speaker C>And. And I soon discovered that, uh, line management positions was not my thing. And uh, it. It didn't allow, um. It didn't allow me to use my creativeness, so to speak.

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> Speaker C>And so I kind of. I shifted over to the government and people probably thinking, government, what could be more boring than the government?

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> Speaker C>But I actually worked sort of in a, uh, In a. In policy areas where I kind of came up with all kinds of, uh, all kinds of government policies, which is.

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> Speaker C>Involves a lot of creativity and a lot of writing. And I did that bounced around, uh, different ministries in, uh. Because I'm in Canada, so they're not departments, they're ministries and uh, ministries in the, um, Ontario government doing different kinds of work. And then when I, uh, decided to leave the government, I did some consulting work and I started to dabble in writing. And I wrote several fictional novels. They were humorous, they were satirical, so to speak. One of them was basically was based on my career in the government, but there were. There was a couple other ones as well. And that.

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> Speaker C>And then I remember one day my wife said I should step back a bit. Both, um, my parents were Holocaust survivors. And um, if for those listening who don't know what that means, it means there's a lot of trauma in your family. Lots.

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> Speaker C>And um, my wife said, you know, you really should tell your parents story. And I said, I don't know.

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> Speaker C>There's. There are so many Holocaust memoirs out there. I don't know.

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> Speaker C>I don't know what one More will do.

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> Speaker C>Then I started thinking about it and you know, I realized I didn't really know my parents stories very well because, um, because they, they did not like speaking about their experience. And that's what happens with trauma, is you kind of bury it all.

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> Speaker C>And they were no longer around either.

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> Speaker C>So um, I started doing a lot of research and uh, I decided I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna do this for the family. Because if I don't know, nobody else knows either.

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> Speaker C>And um, I approached it like any other book, any other writing project ever done, but it wasn't, it was literally transformational.

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> Speaker C>Um, and I guess the best way of describing it is that as I started remembering things from my childhood, all these memories also released a ton of trauma.

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> Speaker C>Um, and uh, so here I am writing a book and literally mentally falling apart.

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> Speaker C>Um, and so my journey to healing began with writing this book.

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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Okay, so kind of tell us what it was like growing up, you know, raised by parents as Holocaust survivors.

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> Speaker C>Okay, so um, they had horrific experiences and I don't know if we want to get into what those were, but um, uh, I would say especially my father had sort of near death experiences, several of them.

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> Speaker C>And uh, he lost his family, which was a wife and two young children.

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> Speaker C>Um, they were murdered. And um, they both survived the experience. But like every other Holocaust survivor, extremely traumatized. They both met after the war and um, and they settled down in Toronto, Canada and uh, raised three kids, myself and two siblings. They were loving parents, but because their own, because of their own struggles, they were quite distant and uninvolved.

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> Speaker C>So as a child, um, I had no one to, I had no one to um, ask questions about life and bring um, homework to, you know, homework from school to help and look for help. Help me decide on uh, what courses to take. Uh, take me to sports, take me.

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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Um.

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> Speaker C>Uh, and other, other activities. You're on your own. Literally if you had a problem at school with a teacher or another student, you're on your own. And so you grow up very, very quickly. But in addition to growing up very quickly and being independent, you end up being very much all the time in a survivor mode. Um, you don't get. You see, you grow to be very distrustful of others because you don't know who to trust. You don't yet, you've just never received that kind of guidance. Um, uh, uh, you lack self confidence and um, uh, and you're sort of very hyper vigilant.

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> Speaker C>And that's what it was like growing up as you, as you got older.

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> Speaker C>All those issues you have, you sort of compartmentalize. And so what happened is I went through my life not even realizing how traumatized I was until I started pulling out those memories. And with them all that trauma came, uh, with. That's kind of what it was like.

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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Okay, well, let's get into the origins of antisemitism. So kind of, kind of talk about that.

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> Speaker C>Well, interesting.

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> Speaker C>It's been around thousands of years and um, um, it quite, to be quite honest, the basis have always been conspiracy theories.

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> Speaker C>So even before the Internet, there always been conspiracy theories, um, that Jewish people control all the banks. Um, the Black plague was blamed on Jews.

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> Speaker C>Um, Jews on the holiday of Passover made matzah m, which is unleavened bread from blood of children. Those kind of things have always existed.

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> Speaker C>And uh, uh, and it didn't help that in the early days of Christianity, um, Jews were blamed for killing Christ. That didn't help.

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> Speaker C>And so this kind of distrust or hate of Jewish people have been, has been passed down thousands of years.

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> Speaker C>And it's been very, it's been very cyclical. There have been times where uh, you know, whole communities have turned on the Jewish population and literally slaughtered them.

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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Okay, well, I know that you are a writer and you're a great writer at that.

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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>So I know in your bio you were talking about the difference between fiction and nonfiction.

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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>So break that down for our listeners.

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> Speaker C>Well, I think whenever you write a book, uh, you're telling a story, uh, whether it's fiction or non fiction.

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> Speaker C>Uh, people reading wanna get drawn into your book and you want to make, you want, you want to encourage them to turning the page.

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> Speaker C>So uh, whether you're writing fiction or nonfiction, you need to really, you have to engage your readers.

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> Speaker C>That's kind of sometimes where the similarity ends. So you know, a classic novel will have, um, you know, a protagonist and an antagonist, um, will have several crises within your story. Um, you're going to have, you'll end up, you often end chapters with sort of cliffhangers, keep the person engaged and then you wrap it all up at the end. Well, nonfiction books don't always work, don't quite work that way.

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> Speaker C>Um, non fiction books, you're. No matter what you're writing about, whether you're writing about um, uh, uh, pop music or science or history, whatever it is, you have to be a subject matter expert. And so it's quite, it's a quite different approach is that when you go to publish that book, they're looking at, okay, who, who the Heck are you, you know, what are your credentials? What makes you an expert? Uh, and, and that kind of a book needs a lot of research, um, and needs to be factually correct. So in a fiction book you can make anything up. Science doesn't have to make sense, you make up your own science.

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> Speaker C>But uh, ah, in a nonfiction book, and this was my experience is that um, I spent so much time fact checking to make sure that what I had was accurate.

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> Speaker C>Um, and the publishing industry even treats it very differently. They, they see it as very different markets. Um, and uh, and so even uh, even, even when you're trying to get your book published. So uh, with a fiction book you've got your, you've got your manuscript finished and um, and you start reaching out to literary agents or in, or indie publishers, um, trying to, trying to entice them in reading your manuscript. With a non fiction book, you're not, you, you don't write your book first. The first thing you do is you write a proposal to uh, uh, to write a book and you, and you send that out which basically details why you consider yourself to be an expert. Um, what the subject matter is, um, who your audience is. And because you're the subject matter expert, how are you gonna, how are you gonna promote um, this book? Uh, because you know, that's an important part of it. So it's very different. And once you're, once somebody proposes your, accepts uh, your proposal, then you kind of sit down and start writing the book. So it's quite a different approach.

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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Okay, well, I know you interviewed a lot of interesting people to write your book. So do you have any interesting stories to share from some of the people you might have interviewed?

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> Speaker C>Yeah, uh, um, uh, well actually what the interviews we're talking about is for my, still my next book which um, I actually just uh, got signed up with an agent uh, to work on and uh, I've actually just this week finished, wrapped up all my interviews.

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> Speaker C>I've interviewed 93 people and should be clear, this book is about trauma.

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> Speaker C>And so what happened was that um, when I finished my memoir, uh, which incidentally um, the publication date is November 9th I believe.

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> Speaker C>Um, when I finished my memoir and uh, I did mention it put me in therapy. So as I'm working my way through therapy and I finish my memoir, I start thinking, well, you know, there's other people like me who are children or grandchildren of, of survivors who um, probably have never shared their experiences with other people. So I decided I'm going to write a book about trauma. But trauma not in Holocaust survivors, but through children and grandchildren. Because one of the things that I learned uh, while I was researching my memoir is that um, you can. Trauma is stored in the body and you can pass on your own, your trauma to your children genetically. Because what happens is that uh, your genes get altered not uh, the sequence but the genes themselves get altered, um, as a result of traumatic events. And in that way you can pass it on just like you're passing on eye color.

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> Speaker C>Um, and uh.

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> Speaker C>And so we have there, there's out there this hidden community of uh, I say hidden because people aren't aware of it, of traumatized people, probably several million, um, who basically nobody knows about. So the name of the book is, it will be the Hidden Victims.

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> Speaker C>Um, so uh, I, I uh, I interviewed a lot of people and uh, a few of them stand out. Uh, uh, this one woman I spoke to, her grandparents were Hong Kong survivors.

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> Speaker C>And um, when, when one of her sons I believe was probably around three, four years old, he had a dream that uh, as he described it to his mother, that he was, he uh, was.

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> Speaker C>He was going onto a train and, and people were pulling him out of his arm, her arms. Which was quite shocked to hear because her grandmother and her grandparents, um, when they were being shipped to Auschwitz, uh, they had a baby and the baby was taken away and put in another car on that train and they never saw that child again. And that four year old had no idea that that ever occurred. And so that is how, that's a great example of how um, genetically trauma and memories can be passed on.

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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Okay, so tell us about intergenerational trauma. I know you talked about that a lot in your bio. So for those who don't know what that is, you know, kind of describe what intergenerational trauma is.

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> Speaker C>Okay, so intergenerational trauma is. And it happens on an individual basis and community basis.

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> Speaker C>So um, uh, and that is, uh, when a individual, a group of people are traumatized, um, and uh, as, and as I mentioned, ah, it alters their behavior.

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> Speaker C>Uh, so when you, when you're presented with a traumatic event, uh, there's a couple responses. One is you freeze, you fight or you flee. Probably a couple other ones, but those are the sort of the main ones. Or, or I'm sorry, there was another one, Fawn, which is you try to appease, uh, your um, tormentor, so to speak. Um, and that kind of behavior is stored and passed on.

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> Speaker C>So when children are faced with a ah, stressful situation, they may not respond like a normal person, they may more respond based on genetically how they've been sort of predisposed to act. And that happens on an individual basis, but on sort of a, uh, it can happen part of the community and you know, maybe a good example is um, uh, is American, uh, blacks that were descended from slaves.

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> Speaker C>Um, those slaves and several generations of slaves were traumatized. And um, probably the black community is still dealing with that trauma that has been passed on for quite a number of generations because it doesn't just disappear if it's not with, if it's not sort of dealt with properly. It would just keep getting passed on from one generation to the next.

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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Okay, so you know, let us know what we would be able to purchase that book and you know, just kind of let listeners know what to expect when they read it.

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> Speaker C>Okay, so my memoir, the. The Hidden Victims, is the book I'm currently working on. So that's going to be, that's a little bit away. But my memoir which deals with all these things as well is called the Hidden Victims.

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> Speaker C>And I think uh, at the moment it's available and probably be available more outlets soon. But right now you can, you can purchase it online on Amazon, ah, and Barnes and Noble. So that's um, out from the Shadows by Willie Handler.

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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Okay, so besides that, what other projects are you working on that people need to be aware of?

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> Speaker C>Well, I mentioned the Hidden Victims, um, and I have um, setting up some Facebook groups to sort of support this project.

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> Speaker C>Um, I've been doing some Holocaust education, mostly in the Toronto area, which is where I'm from, but as well, uh, some online stuff, uh, because virtual education is the way to go now it looks like. Um, and uh, I hope to return to very soon fiction writing. So um, I have a couple stories in my head that um, I would love to get down on paper, but I can only write one book at a time.

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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Well, what made you switch from nonfiction, switch to nonfiction in the first place?

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> Speaker C>Well, it wasn't my plan. It was like as I said it was. My, my wife convinced me to write this book.

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> Speaker C>Um, and writing nonfiction is sort of not foreign to me because um, I did a tremendous amount of writing uh, for my work, writing reports and studies and things like that.

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> Speaker C>So that actually is probably my, it's probably my strength. I probably is a better non fiction writer than a fiction writer.

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> Speaker C>But coming out of uh, you know, going into retirement, um, I really thought that I wanted to do something very different.

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> Speaker C>So I, I picked up fiction writing and with, with some success.

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> Speaker C>Uh, but it was My wife who, who convinced me to write the memoir. And now I'm kind of in a stream of writing non fiction books. But I'm sure I will probably flip back and forth over time.

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> Speaker C>It's not a lot. I don't think there's a lot of writers who do both.

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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Absolutely. So throw out your contact info so people can keep up with everything that you're up to.

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> Speaker C>I have a blog. Ah, you know, a website and blog. It's just Willie handler.com and Willie spelled W I L L E and handler is spelled H A N D L E R.

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> Speaker C>And uh, you can sign up for my newsletter, um, on actually on the blog and that will provide you with monthly uh, updates of all the projects that I'm working on.

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> Speaker C>And I'm very active on Twitter for those who are on Twitter. And again that's just Willie Handler. Ah, it's at Willie Handler and you can find me there.

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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Okay. What closes out with some final thoughts? Maybe if that was something I forgot to talk about that you would like to touch on or any final thoughts you have for the listeners.

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> Speaker C>Well, um, I would say that um, that um, it's great to pick up, it's great to eventually pick up on your passion projects, but you can, you can fall down a rabbit hole and um, and you need to get yourself out. So um, uh, I've gone through this sort of transformation. I can tell you that writing that memoir has changed my relationships with people, my work ethic, what I want to do the rest of my life.

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> Speaker C>It's, it's really gave, given me an opportunity to be introspective.

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> Speaker C>And uh, I, I think that's a wonderful experience to go to. And if you, if you don't and you do that through passion projects like what I did and so you uh, know, for the listeners out there, I hope one day you have an opportunity to experience something like that as well.

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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>All right, ladies and gentlemen, Willie handler.com please be sure to check him out.

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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Pick up that book, check out his new book coming Follow rate Review Share this episode to as many people as possible. Jump on your favorite podcast app, check out the show, give us a follow a review if you have any guests or suggestion topics. Curtis Jackson 1978@att.net is the place to send them. Thank you for listening and supporting the show. Willie. Thank you for all that you do and thank you for joining us.

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> Speaker C>Uh, my pleasure.

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> Curveball>For more information on the Living the Dream podcast, visit www.djcurveball.com until next time, stay focused on living the dream.

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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Dream.