William Jack Sibley: 'If It Don't Sting, Bite, Poke or Maim'
Sixth generation Texas playwright, author depicts 1970s South Texas
By Kate Hutson Olsen

Whoever said, "You can't go home again" must not have met William Jack "Bill" Sibley. The Texas author, screenwriter and playwright has done it four times already. A sixth generation Texan, he's got this place in his blood.

The last three years, the urban cowboy has been on his ranch south of San Antonio. In his family for four generations, the place has drawn the versatile writer back to stay. "I either want to be out on the ranch or in Times Square. You can keep the rest," Sibley says.

Sibley's most recent play, IF YOU LOVED ME, premiered in San Antonio Sept. 24 at The Theatre in the CameoCenter. It's a two-act, romantic comedy set in 1970s South Texas. Drawing from his experience growing up here, Sibley defies stereotypes as he crafts a tale of two men and two women who want the person they can't have and discover that may be the best thing after all.

I first met Bill when he led a writer's workshop on the craft of dialogue. The trim, tan, middle-aged author kept us laughing with colorful tales from his varied writing experiences. It also became obvious that dialogue is his gift. Playwriting fits like a well-broken saddle.

But the theater isn't the only benefactor of Sibley's writing. ANY KIND OF LUCK, his first novel, earned rave reviews in 2001 It was nominated for the Lambda Literary Awards and was runner-up for "Funniest Book of the Year" by the Texas Institute of Letters, the John Bloom Award, and the ForeWord Magazine Book of the Year.  His second novel, FADED LOVE, comes out in 2005.

While in Los Angeles for a few years, Sibley wrote for a daytime drama, "The Guiding Light." Excited to have a paying job, but depressed about writing for a "soap opera," Sibley said an actor friend made him realize how few people get such an opportunity.

He decided to be grateful, considering how far he'd come. 

Moving from Texas to New York when his parents divorced, Bill went to college at Hofstra, then returned for further study at the University of Texas at Austin. He took up writing, he says, "because it was one thing I could do well. That, and raising cattle."

Living and writing in New York again later in life, he eventually returned to Texas and then spent a few years in Santa Fe before moving back to the ranch for good.

South Texas is not only home, it's a fertile source of material, Sibley said in a recent interview. "If you can't write here, you must not be paying attention."

Your first novel, ANY KIND OF LUCK, was a success. You're obviously good at writing fiction. What made you want to write plays?

That's easy. I majored in film at the University of Texas. I wanted to be Fellini. I wanted to be Ingmar Bergman. I wanted to be Vincente Minnelli. When they handed me my diploma I was basically qualified to hang lights on the six o'clock news. Nobody was going to pay me a farthing to direct a movie, so I started focusing on writing. I wrote a screenplay in 1977 called PURE HEARTS AND CONQUISTADORS about a lost Spanish mission out in West Texas.

What happened with it?

Well. I wanted Sissy Spacek and, I don't know, Eric Roberts, to star in it. Got some good feedback. Got a big agent interested. Nothing ever came of it. Then I entered a playwright competition and my play won first place. I thought, plays are cheaper to produce than movies. So, I got hooked.

Your new play, IF YOU LOVED ME, is about South Texas back when you were a child. What made you want to write about that?

I really wrote it thinking about who my parents were when I was a kid. My dad was a cowboy/veterinarian/oil wildcatter. My mom was a red-haired, raving beauty (still is) and a frustrated painter. They made a pretty glamorous team in my eyes. I remembered "that Texas" of my childhood, which is really gone now. It was a different place then. More exotic somehow-definitely more regional.

What's the story about, beyond what the press release describes?

Well, I had all these memories of gorgeous, beautifully-dressed men and women coming to parties at our house, and my brother and I being assigned to open the door and put their Stetsons and mink coasts on the master bed. The play's about people like that and about always wanting something or someone you just can't have. And why sometimes that's the best thing that can ever happen.

What part did you play in the production process?

I made sure the playwright had enough Pepto-Bismol. It can be gut-wrenching working on a new play, and with a director and actors you've never worked with before. I have this vision in my head. The director has his vision. The actors have theirs. I'm supposed to give all my comments to the director only. The actors usually look at you like you're this bag person that wandered in off the street. Sometimes it's okay, but sometimes it gets heated and tense. The goal is just to find the best possible outcome for everyone. I read where Arthur Miller once said, "You have to be a real alligator to survive as a playwright." I knew exactly what he meant. Sometimes you have to bite off a few fingers to protect your baby.

What has kept you coming back to Texas, when you could have lived anywhere?

(Laughs) Lord, all I seem to write about anymore is Texas. South Texas is a hotbed of material for a writer. You've got repressed, Anglo Protestants shoved up next to extroverted, Latino Catholics, and they've been living side by side-peacefully, un-peacefully-for over 200 years. If you can't find something to write about here, you're not trying very hard. Like I wrote in my novel, ANY KIND OF LUCK, "If it don't sting, bite, tear, poke, burn, kick or maim-- it ain't from South Texas."

Speaking of getting bitten, who should see this play and who shouldn't?

Oh, Lord, everyone should see it! Nothing controversial in this baby. A few cuss words maybe, but let's face it, even the good folks of Texas cuss on occasion.

When did you start writing and when did you know you wanted to be a writer?

I've tried to run away from writing many times. It's too heartbreaking, it's too discouraging. You give it your all and mostly you're slammed, misunderstood, laughed at, or worse-ignored. Who would want to do this? I guess, for me, it's one of the few things I actually know how to do. That, and raise cattle. But once or twice a year when I'm deep, deep, deep into something, everything in life disappears for a while: family drama, politics, religion, hunger, sleep, sex. It's the greatest high I know. The words are flowing out like a comet racing across heaven. I've found nothing better. Nothing. It makes up for the rest of the year when you're standing numbly in front of the refrigerator in your underwear at three in the afternoon wondering what happened to your life.

Kate Hutson Olsen is a freelance writer in Tyler who has two female cats, Cagney and Lacy.

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