Getting a Glimpse

Now in his seventies and retired from a successful career in entertainment, Matt Williams embarks on a journey of self-discovery

What started in late 2020 as a need to write something โ€” anything โ€” during a global health crisis yielded a treasureย trove of memories for Matt Williams. After recovering from a severe case of COVID-19, Williams โ€” the Evansville native who created the highly popular TV sitcoms โ€œRoseanneโ€ and โ€œHome Improvementโ€ โ€” knew he wanted to capture his lifeโ€™s formative stories on paper while he still could.

What emerged was a collection of โ€œhumorous essays and spiritual mus- ings,โ€ he says, and a striking link to the name he grew up with โ€” Mark โ€” that he changed in order to register as an actor in the 1970s and early โ€˜80s.

Williams recalled these stories and more during โ€œGlimpses: An Evening with Matt Williams,โ€ a recent speaking engagement at the University of Evansville that raised funds for the theatre departmentโ€™s John David Lutz Theatre Lab. Before the reading, the 1973 UE graduate sat down with Evansville Living and shared his startling journey of self-discovery that began in his rural New York home and resulted in a memoir.

Photo by David Zayas Jr. Evansville Living Managing Editor Jodi Keen interviews writer and executive producer Matt Williams on Jan. 21 during his visit to Evansville.

Evansville Living: How did you get started on โ€œGlimpsesโ€?
Matt Williams: Iโ€™d never written prose โ€” hundreds and hundreds of hours of TV, a lot of movies, but not prose. So, I was so intimidated. I took all these online courses: creative nonfiction, fiction writing. I even took a grammar class just to refresh myself. I started writing almost as an exercise, and I went, hey, this is kind of fun โ€” to not have a studio or network notes or someone over you saying, โ€œNo, youโ€™ve got to do this. Itโ€™s got to be this many words.โ€ I couldnโ€™t wait to wake up in the morning and rush into the library to sit down and start writing.

EL: You mentioned you should have left the entertainment industry sooner. Why do you feel that way?
MW: I was in my sixties, and I wanted to prove I was still in the game and I still had some juice, and I was doing bad movies and developing bad TV shows just for the sake of staying in the game. And I went, itโ€™s not coming from my heart. Iโ€™m not writing from my essence, my true self. Anytime I wrote from that place, it always succeeded. โ€œGlimpsesโ€ is the purest form of me ever. I very consciously decided to be vulnerable and as honest as I could be and not hide behind the persona of Matt Williams. My son, Frederick, said, โ€œStop writing like Matt Williams and write like Mark Williams.โ€ And as soon as he said that, it liberated me.

EL: Do you distinguish yourself between Matt and Mark?
MW: I didnโ€™t for years, but now I do. And I realize I am Mark. โ€œMattโ€ was that persona of the mogul, the show producer, the creator. But my essence, who I am and how I grew up, is Mark. Thatโ€™s who I am.

Jodi Keen
Jodi Keen
Jodi Keen is the managing editor of Evansville Living and Evansville Business magazines.

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