About Me

My name is Pete Morillo, and I am a storyteller living in America. I believe I have always been a writer, but only recently began to try to accepted it. I have accepted it, in the sense that I know, I would rather be a writer than anything else. However, I still have my doubts as to my ability to be a writer. My sister and eighth-grade English teacher insisted I was a writer, but I couldn't hear them. It wasn’t until just a few years ago that I began to believe that maybe my love for stories and storytelling could transfer to the written page and so far... it feels right. 

My decision to write didn’t come easily. As with many big life changes, it all started when terrible news upturned my life. On my birthday, in 2017, my oldest friend called me to tell me he only had six months to live. His name was Reggie Mason, one of the best human beings ever. I met Reggie in second grade, and we have been lifelong brothers ever since. We always had each other's back.
Reggie died of cancer at 48 years of age because, in America, it’s more important to make money than to care for people. I miss my brother, Reggie.

Losing Reggie really shook me. I became disenfranchised with my own life. I had followed the path, I was told, I should follow. I graduated from college. I worked hard and was successful at a respectable job for eighteen years. I took care of the people that took care of me. I had put in the work and was supposed to be happy, but I felt unsatisfied and unfulfilled. I thought I was doing it all right until life wouldn’t let me pretend anymore. 

Spending the last few weeks of his life with my dear friend had changed me forever. Still, life had more in store for me. In the 20 months after we lost Reggie, we lost my friend/aunt Nancy. Her hospice was in my home just 3 months after Reggie's. Then we lost Tyler, who was one of the teenagers that we had unofficially fostered. He drove off the road and died on impact. He had just graduated high school and he was gone. Then my good friend, Smitty, drank himself to death. Finally, the hardest of all. My dad, Petronio E. Morillo passed away in April of 2020 after fighting Covid 19 for over three months. Death was staring me in the face as it took loved one after loved one in rapid succession.

The life I had built and the person I had been, were both gone. I felt alone and more vulnerable than ever. Many people would chalk this up to a simple "mid-life crisis." The prevailing wisdom is that when we get to age fifty, death becomes much more prevalent in our lives. It's just a natural occurrence. 

Let me be the first to say, that no crisis is simple. If something is so consistent that everyone knows about it, isn’t it something we should try to understand? 

It is not a coincidence, nor a good thing that people reach a point in their lives and suddenly decide they are not happy and need to make real changes. 

Mine was not so much a crisis as it was the stripping away of the set of false priorities that I had learned growing up. 

After having Reggie at my house for his hospice and then losing my father, the reality could no longer be denied. Life is all that matters. In the end, the only thing we want is more of it. Suddenly, my eyes saw things differently. 

Now everything is about living my life in the best way possible. I want to be happy. I want to enjoy whatever time I have left with the people I love. I am now making myself a priority and I won't feel guilty about it. I know what is important and it's about living. Enjoying your time is the only thing that matters. Gather with friends and drink in your life. Life is fleeting. We must enjoy our lives. Nothing has ever been clearer to me.

The reality is that we have no idea how much time we have left. Perhaps, if we did, we would spend our time more wisely. 

I decided to do what makes me happy. Nothing in the world makes me happier than sharing a delightful story with friends, so I tried to write one. It has taken time for the storyteller to find his way out, but I am making the journey. To me, writers have always been kind of mythical, like dragons or unicorns. Writers create stories and those stories and books are the foundation for sharing knowledge and ideas. 

What greater endeavor can there be?

As I grew up, I lived in worlds created by the authors of my favorite books. I was a greaser in "The Outsiders," by S.E. Hinton. I rooted for the rats in Robert C. O’Brien’s, "Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of N.I.M.H." And I hunted the Ozark Mountains long side "Old Dan" and "Little Ann," when I read "Where the Red Ferns Grow," by Wilson Rawls. Those were the first books to leave an impression on me.

My thirst for good stories didn’t stop with books, movies brought the stories to life in front of my eyes. Movies expanded my ability to find great stories. “First Blood, Aliens, The Godfather, Scarface, Life Is Beautiful, Forest Gump,” and so many more. 

I would sit in a theatre or in front of the TV and become completely submerged in the world created by those magical writers. What a gift they had to share. Their stories will last forever.

So here I am, my name is Petronio Morillo, and I am trying to be a writer.

I have written my first novel. It is a fictional post-apocalyptic novel that faces hard truths about human nature. The story tells of a world in turmoil with a human population on the brink. The setting is the not-too-distant future where the human population has been decimated by warfare, famine, and disease. What happens when a group of friends faces the end of the world together? Follow along as they fight to survive and hold on to their humanity. 

When it all happens, how fast will humans devolve into monsters? Can good people survive and rebuild? Or will the darkness within consume us and finish us off? 

It is a classic tale, set in a realistic future, told from a modern perspective. 

I hope you like it; I tried my best. 

Thanks,

Petronio Morillo

I believe that a person's roots are in the people around them. It is because of this, I can say that I am one of the luckiest people in the World. I know now that no one does it alone. We all need help from time to time and my sisters and my friends have always been there for me. 

At this later stage of my life, I can say I want to be happy and healthy. I want to spend time with my loved ones and enjoy the good times that life has to offer. I write as I am, I am creative but realistic. I write to pass on life experience and knowledge. I feel very grateful for each person I have met along my journey. 

I have come to learn that the society we created is not conducive to the creative process or a happy simple life. Life can be so busy, so demanding, and so overwhelming at times. It makes it hard to settle down and find peace. 

My process begins and ends with the knowledge that we only have the moment. When we can find the present moment we can find our true selves and live. That is when we can find and explore our passions. We must learn to live better lives, be better to each other, and create a safe happy world for ourselves.