William Woolfitt

"I have time" baker, poet, and biographer Margot Kahn on getting over self-consciousness to begin again (and again) and the power of reminding yourself that you do have time 🌲

Margot Kahn truly lives out the ethos of beginner’s mind in her writing and her life (she opened a bakery! she hosts a podcast about ferries with her son!) Read on & channel some of that potent beginner’s mind energy for yourself.🌲
emilymohnslate.substack.com/p/i-have-time

Dry Run Creek malformed calves      foaming at the mouth      a creek that bubbles

So happy to see @williamwoolfitt.bsky.social’s poem up today at @poetrydaily.bsky.social !!
@bellepointpress.bsky.social

poems.com/poem/dry-run...

I'm interested in a critique!

In other news, if you'd like a signed copy of one of my books or a critique of a short story, poem, first chapter, lmk! For critiques, we can work out an affordable rate. Very affordable.

Would you like to answer some questions about your chapbook for the Speaking of Marvels blog?

Amy Stuber “I’m constantly thinking as I’m writing, ‘That’s not really it!’ or ‘That doesn’t ring true’ to get myself to drill down and get at the real emotion of a character.&#8…

It was so fun to be a part of @williamwoolfitt.bsky.social's Speaking of Marvels series - thanks for including me in this!
spkofmarvels.wordpress.com/2025/04/25/a...

Abbie Kiefer “Sometimes we are sheltered surely and fully and sometimes we only have a particular kind of solace—maybe not the complete respite we hoped for, but solace all the same.” Certain Shelte…

Thanks to @williamwoolfitt.bsky.social for the chance to talk about ordering a manuscript and writing oddball poems. spkofmarvels.wordpress.com/2025/04/17/a...

Thanks to @robmclennan.bsky.social for the wide-ranging, open-ended questions—this interview touches on Mycocosmic but is more about process and the power of books to change us. @tupelopress.bsky.social

The one review I managed to write last year, just published in Revolute, sings the praises of The Night The Rain Had Nowhere to Go. Congratulations @williamwoolfitt.bsky.social !

Thanks so much to @williamwoolfitt.bsky.social for the opportunity to talk about my work at his site Speaking of Marvels! spkofmarvels.wordpress.com/2025/04/07/j...

4 books: colorful cover of Best American Essays 2025, editor WESLEY MORRIS's name prominent at the bottom; orange, green, and yellow cover or Ross Gay's The Book of (More) Delights, with DELIGHTS and ROSS GAY visible; white cover with black lettering and a black train with THE BODY IS A TEMPORARY GATHERING PLACE in caps, Andrew Bertaina's name below; and a black and white photo of the woods, with EYES MOVING THROUGH THE DARK in caps, William Wolfitt below.

ESSAYS! Two collections I’ve been reading for a while, and two in the mail today from Orison Books and @autofocusbooks.bsky.social. Looking forward to reading @williamwoolfitt.bsky.social's EYES MOVING THROUGH THE DARK and @andrewbertaina.bsky.social’s THE BODY IS A TEMPORARY GATHERING PLACE.

Lesley Wheeler “…we’re all connected, even if in invisible, underground ways.”   Mycocosmic (Tupelo Press , forthcoming March 4, 2025) A question from Toni Ann Johnson: Why are you wri…

Thank so much to @williamwoolfitt.bsky.social for featuring this interview about Mycocosmic at the wonderful site Speaking of Marvels! spkofmarvels.wordpress.com/2025/02/25/l...

Turquoise Circles | Reckoning I drive four hundred miles to my grandparents’ Angus cattle farm near Nestorville, West Virginia. And walk up the knob, zenith and center of meadows they mowed, cow paths, rust-roofed sheds, silo, shr...

Today in heartbreak, read this new poem by William Woolfit: reckoning.press/turquoise-ci...

Turquoise Circles | Reckoning I drive four hundred miles to my grandparents’ Angus cattle farm near Nestorville, West Virginia. And walk up the knob, zenith and center of meadows they mowed, cow paths, rust-roofed sheds, silo, shr...

...we dream in the pool of a moon-washed house.
There’s Angus cow in me, flat-spired snail,
night shark, jaguarundi, giant kelp, ground dove.

@williamwoolfitt.bsky.social in @reckoningmag.bsky.social

reckoning.press/turquoise-ci...

From Spring Up Everlasting by @williamwoolfitt.bsky.social

Last four reads

Within a budding grove by Marcel Proust TR Scott Moncrieff

Flights by Olga Tokarczuk TR Jennifer Croft

All things are too small by Becca Rothfeld

The night the rain had nowhere to go by @williamwoolfitt.bsky.social @bellepointpress.bsky.social

Cover of EYES MOVING THROUGH THE DARK by William Woolfitt

D Is for Dominion D descends from the Hebrew 7, daleth, from the Greek A, delta, from the shape of a farmhouse door blown open by a snarl of wind, from the rich dirt the river carries to its mouth. D is for dread, deer meat, dump truck, dig down deep. D is for drill, detonate, dove of peace. See it open, see it take wing and lift in the wind, a staked animal skin, a tattered flag, a heavy cloud. Hear it sing the long story of the places that we try to claim, the places that swell our hearts to bursting, hear it sing and then follow its underground threads, the secrets of holding cells and dangerous men waiting for soup in the basement, the masses of pig iron and dross and korl, the smoke of a spoil tip burning in Trace Gap.

On our side porch, while we're hunting for his rain boots, the boy spies a bird's nest tucked into my old shoe. "Why," he says. He half-smiles, half-grimaces. Maybe he's surprised, astonished. I'm thinking there are stories my son will need to hear someday-stories about different kinds of looking and taking, the newest Jim Crow-about who breaks the world, who glues the cracks. Maybe I'll tell him or maybe he'll tell me your look can be honest, humble, steady, unafraid, here's current of sorrow, river of light, we're drinking it in. Soon, I'm walking with my son down the quiet road near our house. "That," he says; he means, what is that? He notices everything. "That," he says, and I tell him, cracked asphalt, or drainpipe, or seedpods in the ditch. From my son, I am learning to see.

Spending my holiday with these lovely essays by @williamwoolfitt.bsky.social

So grateful for the thoughtful questions posed by the editors at Speaking of Marvels on the craft behind my debut essay collection UTTER, EARTH - here are a few excerpts!

🙏to founder @williamwoolfitt.bsky.social for the invitation!

Full interview here
spkofmarvels.wordpress.com/2024/11/11/i...

The Pleasures of Reading, Viewing, and Listening in 2024, pt.4: Lesley Wheeler Pleasures of 2024 by Lesley Wheeler     During the summer, I spent two weeks in Scotland. I read many memorable books to set the m...

It’s an annual pleasure to highlight some of the books I’ve loved in the annual “Pleasures in Reading, Viewing, & Listening” column from Aqueduct Press—and to read great recs from others, too: aqueductpress.blogspot.com/2024/12/the-... @williamwoolfitt.bsky.social

Coming early 2025 in Reckoning 9: new work by @williamwoolfitt.bsky.social, Sofia Ezdina, Ellen K. Fee, Jacqueline Roberti, Purbasha Roy, @ideofmarch.bsky.social, S.L. Harris, Offor Chidera, Mário Coelho, @jacobcoffinwrites.bsky.social, August Cao, Solomon T. Hamza, Allison Whittenberg, ... (1/3)

Loving this essay collection from @williamwoolfitt.bsky.social

Amy Stuber's stories are about your neighbors and friends, the people you think you know, and what they are all hiding from you: the truth, which is that we are children and will remain so, that we are performing and we don't know it.

Eyes Moving Through the Dark, essays by William Woolfitt | Orison Books Eyes Moving Through the Darkessays by William Woolfitt Orison Bookspaper / 138 pp. / $20.00Print ISBN: 978-1-949039-49-8E-book ISBN: 978-1-949039-53-5Distributed to the trade by Itasca Books952-22...

Eyes Moving Through the Dark, my collection of essays, is nine days old! www.orisonbooks.com/product-page...

I'd like to create an "Authors of Small/Indie Press Books 2024-2025" starter pack. Is that you? If so, please reply here. Also, if you don't mind reposting this for visibility, I'd appreciate it! #writingcommunity #indiebooks #indieauthors #booksky

Legs by Irene McKinney, from "Have You Had Enough Darkeness Yet?" I can prop my legs straight up the wall while I'm lying in bed reading, or I can bend them any which way whenever, although I'm sixty-seven and "suffering" from various conditions and diseases, and I look in the mirror sometimes and say "Hain't you cute" and that's the way it is at this juncture. I have always been careless because I never had anything to lose, no money, no gorgeous looks, no social position, no power, no automatic respect from various possible sources, and when I was young I was mildly outrageous, and now I am completely, having seen in my brief forays into predictability that there's no percentage in it. Really, there isn't. I know you hope there is, but really, there isn't.

"... and when I was young
I was mildly outrageous, and now I am
completely, having seen in my brief forays
into predictability that there's no percentage
in it. Really, there isn't. I know you hope
there is, but really, there isn't."

—Irene McKinney, "Legs," from "Have You Had Enough Darkness Yet?"

Author Interview * Janna Miller Janna Miller’s new collection, All Lovers Burn At the End of the World, conjures a host of weirdly beautiful characters, enticing the reader into landscapes perilous precisely because of their surf…

New Micro Q&A with @scribblermiller.bsky.social!

Congrats to Janna on the publication of her new collection, ALL LOVERS BURN AT THE END OF THE WORLD! Out now from @emergejournal.bsky.social!

#flashfiction

My editing students are making online literary magazines, and I'd like you to meet Bric-a-Brac! They're open for submissions of flash, poetry, fiction, cnf, and more. The deadline is April 2.

bricabracmagazine.wordpress.com/submissions

Attempt with a Gap in It Evergreen Review

Thankful to the stellar and stunning Evergreen Review, esp. to poetry editor Jee Leong Koh, for publishing four of my abecedarian attempts, alongside art by Jenny Rask. One of these poems is for bees and flowers. The other ones are for people. evergreenreview.com/read/attempt...

My prose poem "Buying Snowball Pumpkins..." just got an acceptance from @gonelawn.bsky.social, will be in my forthcoming @bellepointpress.bsky.social book, borrows a line from the Carter Family song "When the World’s on Fire," and borrows another line from this beautiful poem by Maggie Anderson --

And oh @bellepointpress.bsky.social is a wonder bellepointpress.com/products/rea...