Paul Willis

In his fiction, poetry, and essays, Paul Willis observes the world with even-keeled serenity and a delicate sensitivity to the workings of grace. He once worked as a mountain guide in the Cascades and Sierra Nevadas, and he has a naturalist’s quiet appreciation for the systems of life—but the scope of his subject matter extends to include humans as well as flora and fauna. In every genre, his writing seems driven by what is pretty clearly a life-long habit of observation, and his nonfiction in particular shows a curiosity and love for others that are too often missing from that genre. His voice is modest, gentle, and polished, but with a fine, crackling intelligence that his self-effacement doesn’t quite conceal. Willis is able to explore profound moral territory with a touch that feels light, perhaps because of its alertness to beauty and to the fine nuances of human decisions. He never tugs at our elbows or tell us where we should be looking, never lectures, but trusts us to put the pieces together. In his careful arrangement of detail, he works a marvelous, resonant pattern that leaves the reader with a sense of pleasure and real joy, of a world pervaded with holiness as well as tragedy, of systems at play that are larger and more generous than our comprehension can allow.

Read Paul J. Willis' essay Spokane: A Triptych from Image 39 here.

Paul J. Willis' Current Projects

I am currently doing research for a series of poems on the life and work of David Douglas, a Scottish botanist of the early nineteenth century who roamed the Pacific Northwest in search of new plant species.  The Douglas fir is named in his honor.  Having written quite a few poems about myself, I thought I would enjoy the challenge of writing about someone else.  Reading his journals, I am struck by his curiosity and persistence, the same qualities needed by any writer.

Paul J. Willis' Biography

Paul J. Willis teaches writing and literature at Westmont College in Santa Barbara, California.  He grew up in Oregon, attended college in Illinois, worked as a mountain guide in the Cascades and Sierra Nevadas, and earned his graduate degrees at Washington State University.  While researching a dissertation on Shakespeare’s green worlds, he drafted an eco-fantasy novel, No Clock in the Forest, which was published by Avon Books.  A revised version of this novel, together with three sequels, will be published as The Alpine Tales by Wordfarm in 2009.  Wordfarm has also published his adventures in creative nonfiction, Bright Shoots of Everlastingness: Essays on Faith and the American Wild (2005).

Willis began to write poetry about twenty years ago while teaching at Houghton College in New York with John Leax and James Zoller.  Since then he has published three chapbooks, one of which, The Deep and Secret Color of Ice, was selected as a contest winner by Jane Hirshfield.  The most recent of his chapbooks is How to Get There (Finishing Line Press, 2004).  His first full volumes of poetry, Visiting Home (Pecan Grove Press) and Rosing from the Dead (WordFarm), will be published in 2008.

His poems and essays have appeared in Best American Poetry 1996, Best Spiritual Writing 1999, Best American Spiritual Writing 2004, and Best Christian Writing 2006.  With David Starkey, he co-edited the anthology In a Fine Frenzy: Poets Respond to Shakespeare (University of Iowa Press, 2005).  They were overwhelmed with submissions about Ophelia.