Dr. William Woolfitt
Dr. William Woolfitt, assistant professor of creative writing at Lee University, has won the Appalachian Heritage Denny C. Plattner Award in Poetry for his poem “Glassworks Hot Room as Pentecostal Church.”
Kenneth and Elissa May Plattner established the Denny C. Plattner Awards in 1995 to honor their late son, Denny, and his love for writing. The awards are presented to the finest pieces of fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry that appeared in the magazine during the previous year.
The poetry portion of the competition was judged by author Jane Hicks, who said this about Dr. Woolfitt’s poem, “I admired this poem when it first appeared in Appalachian Heritage. The author captured the heightened atmosphere of the room and the flame of Pentecost.”
According to Dr. Woolfitt, “Glassworks” is about a boy working in a glass factory in Clarksburg, West Virginia, and will appear in his book, “Spring Up Everlasting,” forthcoming from Paraclete Press in 2019.
Dr. Woolfitt won the Plattner Award in Fiction in 2013 for his short story “Daughter with a Star on Her Brow.”
“Appalachian Heritage is one of my favorite literary magazines,” said Dr. Woolfitt. “Its editors have done much to encourage and support my poetry as well as my fiction.”
Dr. Woolfitt joined Lee’s Department of Language and Literature in fall 2012, where he teaches creative writing and literature. He earned his Doctor of Philosophy and his Master of Fine Arts from The Pennsylvania State University. He received his Master of Arts from Hollins University and his Bachelor of Arts from Fairmont State College.
Recently, Dr. Woolfitt had two fiction pieces selected for inclusion in “The Best Small Fictions of 2017” anthology.
He is the author of two books of poetry, “Beauty Strip” and “Charles of the Desert,” along with a chapbook of prose, “The Boy with Fire in His Mouth.” His works appear in such publications as Michigan Quarterly Review, Notre Dame Review, and The Threepenny Review, among others.
For more information on Appalachian Heritage, visit http://appalachianheritage.net/.
To read the award-winning poem “Glassworks Hot Room as Pentecostal Church,” visit http://appalachianheritage.net/2017/05/26/glassworks-hot-room-as-pentecostal-church/.