We are proud to share that Willie’s novel, “Tore All to Pieces” will be released next year. He recently participated in our workshops with the American Library Association. Check out our interview with him below!

1. Tell us about your book! 

The book is called Tore All to Pieces. It’s a fragmented novel — a novel told through a series of interconnected stories. It takes place in a fictional town in Appalachian Kentucky and centers people whose stories rarely get told: kids in poverty, victims of drug abuse, women working minimum wage jobs, queer Appalachians. My goal was to remind us that we are each other’s context — that if life is a painting, none of us can be unpainted. All of us matter. So much so that the painting doesn’t exist without us.

2. What was the inspiration for the book?

I wrote a poem about a memory — a little girl I didn’t know mocking me for pushing my bike when I was a fat kid too out of shape to ride it. She was just two lines of a long text. But that little girl, in the poem, kept buzzing. She wanted a story, too. She kept insisting. She wanted her own dimension.

So I wrote it. A story about her. And the same scene arrived, too — her mocking me. But even though both moments were the same factually, the girl in the poem didn’t fit in the story. And the girl from the story didn’t fit into the poem.  

Tore All to Pieces was born then, out of the question of how our lens flattens — and even lies — about who we’re looking at, even when we’re dealing in facts. This book works to center people as each other’s context to complicate how we see stories.

And that little girl — who let me know her name is Keesha — became so important she is on the cover.

3. How did participating in a WGI workshop help your writing?

The WGI workshop didn’t just give me a mentor who understands the process of writing, it gave me classmates who understood the context of what I wanted to share. The WGI workshop told me that it was okay to write the most sensitive and heartfelt parts of the story and let me know, week after week, that there are people who care and who get it. I was able not only to add emotional depth to Tore All to Pieces but was inspired to write another collection as well. It was a life-changing experience, and I am grateful to everyone who made it happen.

4. Where/when can people purchase the book?

It comes out in March of 2026, but it’s already available for pre-order everywhere books are sold!

If anyone wants to support an LGBTQ-affirming Appalachian bookstore, they can order it from CoffeeTree Books in Kentucky and get a signed copy and a personalized note from me at no extra charge:

https://www.coffeetreebooks.com/product-page/tore-all-to-pieces

5. What do you think makes a good story, and what kinds of stories are you drawn to?

I think stories should change things. If the world were perfect, we wouldn’t need to tell new ones. But stories, at their heart, are new ways of thinking — bits of others’ bodies and experiences transformed into something we can take into ourselves.

I’m drawn to stories that change me — that show me pain, heartache, and ugliness, then show me the way out and up. To Morrison. To Faulkner. To L’Engle. To Tan.

6. What is your earliest memory of writing? How did you start?

I remember writing little stories as early as first grade. I’d give them as presents: stories about talking animals or magical things. My first story that really sticks was from fourth grade — a boy realizes his imaginary friend isn’t imaginary. He’s from another dimension. His friend teaches him to see inside matter and realize it’s not real in the way he thinks it is.

7. What are you working on next?

A couple of things! Mothman is a famous Appalachian cryptid, and what folks outside the hills might not know is that he’s a queer symbol and hero: the dark, misunderstood creature who knows something painful or transformative might happen but can’t get others to listen because they fear his difference? Pure queer Appalachia. I’ve just finished a novel about him.

I’m also knee-deep in a poetry and memoir collection that began in my workshop with the Writers Guild Initiative, under the careful hands of Peter Parnell. It’s about the experience of being called a “groomer,” of being harassed, belittled, and threatened for daring to be gay and a teacher.

8. Do you have any advice, tips, guidance or resources you’d like to share for someone who wants to write? 

My biggest piece of advice is simply to write. So many of us believe we have to earn the right or have a plan. I say you have a story and you deserve to tell it. Jump headfirst. Be weird. Let yourself get lost in the pleasure of expression. What your heart wants to write will come. And then, as soon as you’re ready, share it with those you trust. The best-known authors aren’t always the best writers — not by a long shot. There are incredible writers who never publish because they don’t write. So write.