Willie Edward Taylor Carver Jr.
American author
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Willie Edward Taylor Carver Jr. is an American educator and author from Floyd County, Kentucky.[1] In 2021, Carver was named the 2022 Kentucky Teacher of the Year,[2] after teaching French and English at Montgomery County High School.[3] In 2022, he resigned from his position, citing homophobia,[4] later that same year testifying before the United States House Oversight Subcommittee on Civil Rights and Civil Liberties.[5]
Willie is the author of Gay Poems for Red States, a collection of narrative poems published by the University Press of Kentucky in 2023.[6][7] Gay Poems for Red States was named a Book Riot 2023 Best Book of the Year,[8] an IndieBound and American Booksellers Association's must-have book for poetry lovers,[9] a Top Ten Best Book of Appalachia by Read Appalachia,[10] a top ten 2022 Southern Book in Garden and Gun,[11] and selected as a 2023 Over the Rainbow Book List book by the American Library Association.[12] In 2024, it was named a Stonewall Book Award Honor Book[13] and won a Whippoorwill Honor Award for Rural Young Adult Literature.[14] Gay Poems for Red States has since been named a 2025 Judy Gaines Young Book Award nominee [15] and the winner of a Rainbow Advocacy 2025 Award.[16]
Carver has published poetry in Southern Humanities Review,[17] North Meridian Review,[18] Chase Law Review,[19] Untelling Magazine,[20] 2RulesofWriting,[21] Another Chicago Magazine,[22] Largehearted Boy,[23] Smoky Blue Literary Magazine,[24] Good River Review,[25] Salvation South,[26] The Louisville Review,[27] Right Hand Pointing,[28] Harbor Review,[29] Young Ravens Literary Review, [30] and Ghost City Press.[31]
Carver is also the author of Tore All to Pieces, a fragmented novel about the lives of a fictional Appalachian community, published by the University Press of Kentucky in 2026.[32] His creative writing has been published by Salvation South,[33] Untelling Magazine,[34] North Meridian Review,[35] and in a variety of anthologies and books, including Trouble in Censorville (Disobedience Press),[36] Had I a Dove (Red Hawk Publications),[37] Discarded (Backwoods Literary Press),[38] and Rural Education and Queer Identities (Routledge).[39]
Carver currently works at the University of Kentucky[40] Gatton College of Business and Economics as an academic advisor.[41][42] He contributes to MSNBC[43][44] and Heinemann.[45][46]
In 2023, he was featured on Good Morning America 3, where he spoke about the need for stories that reflect students' experiences.[47]