Bill Magill is an American writer, musician, and educator living in Provence, France. His growing body of work includes 2 books, a series of 100+ essays, 3 albums, a theatrical rock drama, and workshops for aspiring entrepreneurs and interpreneurs. Bill is also a devoted dad, practiced bacchanalian, and serviceable home chef.
Essays & Books:
Bill relocated to Aix-en-Provence from San Francisco in 2010. He was in search of a simpler, deeper, more authentic life, … one full of creative passion and a richer sense of purpose. Writing became part daily structure, part self-therapy, and laid the foundation for a collection of essays – Postcards from a Runaway – on bewilderment at midlife and his search for the ideal afternoon cocktail. Select essays have been compiled into 3 volumes of Bill’s “Provence Chronicles” and published in 2024.New essays are published here and at Bill’s Substack page.
The “Deep Tech Playbook,” published in 2023, is an action-oriented manual providing a step-by-step guide to the market and product essentials for the commercial launch of science-based innovations, a topic Bill teaches at INSEAD and other leading universities.
In 2024 he published “Where Now & How,” a series of 12 experiments to help interpreneurs at midlife draw maps, uncover truths, build plans, fuel motivation, strengthen resilience, and be audacious with life.
Music & Theater:
Bill has been writing music and playing in bands for just about as long as he can remember. With the pop-punk quartet Tina Peel he played under the stage name Rowdy Doody on various EPs and other live compilation recordings in the 1970s. Bill’s first full-length LP – Eskimo in the Sun – was released in 1996, followed by Last Night at the Ha-Ra in 2018 and Lights Up on the Vivid Stage in 2024. A fully cast radio theatre adaption of Last Night at the Ha-Ra, scripted by Bill, was released in 2021. His script for the theatrical adaption of Lights Up is now in development. (Curious to collaborate? Please get in touch.)
Education & Coaching:
Bill has been teaching entrepreneurship courses at the INSEAD business school (near Paris) since 2008, mostly around the topics of startup creation and investing. His current program focuses on deep tech venturing with partners CERN and the European Space Agency.
He also runs workshops in Provence on interpreneurship – the art of pursuing grand life ambitions of deep personal meaning – through his company the Interprize Group.
Bill has has also been paid to wash dishes, tend bar, pump gas, play loud music, and blow up space stuff with lasers. All readers passing through Provence are invited to seek Bill out for a drink and exchange of ideas.
BILL MAGILL 