RS Hamilton

R.S. Hamilton loved reading books at a young age. While growing up in the country, he loved the outdoors, and much of his reading entailed outdoor survival and hunting. He never gave writing a thought until his senior year of high school, when his composition teacher saw talent in him. After graduating high school, he read more fiction to the tune of Stephen King, Dean Koontz, and Clive Barker. He enrolled at Bowling Green State University in Northwest Ohio, about forty minutes from where he grew up. He studied creative writing and
literature and fell in love with the writings of James Baldwin, Tim O’Brien, Flannery O’Connor, and John Steinbeck. It was then that he began writing short stories.

After two years of college, Hamilton left school to take a job building houses. A few years later, he joined The United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America. Over the next several years, he worked construction, remodeled houses, and raised a family. In 2006, he built his own house, where he still resides with his wife. He continued to write on and off, and most of his writing was still short stories, but he did write a novel during that time. Once the book was complete, he wrote it off as an experiment; he felt it wasn’t good enough to move forward.

 

After he put the first novel to bed, he got an idea for a place called the In Between. From there, The Stories of Evergreen came to life. With the crazy overtime hours a construction worker deals with, it took him eight years to finish the novel. When the dust settled, he had a story titled The Stories of Evergreen Book I: The Life of Billy Blaine. While writing Evergreen, he went back to college and achieved an Associate of Arts degree from Cuyahoga Community College. The degree focused heavily on literature, where Hamilton read Toni Morrison, Richard Wright, and Raymond Carver.

Hamilton lives in Northwest Ohio, where he is now a carpentry instructor for the Northwest Ohio Carpenters Apprenticeship program.