William (Bill) Fietzer is an author, writing instructor, and former librarian who resides with his wife, two sons, and their 17 year-old gray tabby, Dashiell, in south Minneapolis. The son an executive secretary and a corrections official at the maximum security prison in Waupun, Wisconsin, Bill knew he wanted to write hard-edged fiction during his undergrad years at the University of Wisconsin. Fate in the form of the loaded ping-pong balls of the Vietnam  draft lottery intervened, however. His military experience formed the basis of his first short story, “Special Training,” which appeared in the literary journal, Vietnam Generation. His play, A Question of Benefit, also originating from these experiences, won second place at the Wisconsin Regional Writers Association Awards.   

Additional articles, reviews, and stories ensued along with Bill’s increasing family responsibilities. After obtaining his Masters degrees in English literature and in Library and Information Studies from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, he worked as an original cataloger and bibliographer in the arts and humanities at the University of North Carolina-Charlotte and at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities. During this period he edited several professional journals and chaired the Charlotte (N.C) area’s Metrolina Libraries Association and the American Library Association’s Networked Resources and Metadata Committee. With the knowledge gained from his professional researches he fashioned chapters on metadata and the Internet for several works of professional non-fiction including Libraries, the Internet, and Scholarship in 2002.These efforts resulted in his appearances in the 2005 edition of Who’s Who in America and in the 2006 edition of Who’s Who in American Education. 

They also fed Bill’s growing interest in mystery fiction. His second mystery/thriller, Metadata Murders, (2006) stemmed from his professional research into identity theft and the Dark Web. His first thriller, Penal Fires, (2002) grew out of his first-hand exposure to the anti-war movement in post-war Madison and the state’s deinstitutionalization of the mentally ill. Now writing his third novel, Bill works as a freelance writer and as an instructor in English and writing for the Huntington Learning Center. He remains an ongoing member of the American Library Association and of the Richard Wagner Society of the Upper Midwest along with serving as the current vice-president for the Twin Cities chapter of Sisters in Crime.