Will's belief in the power of language was indelibly instilled in him at the age of six, when he took his very first poem to his grandmother--herself an accomplished poet and songwriter--and received praise and encouragement for his effort. Will later served as editor for his high school literary magazine, which nearly got him expelled due to the controversial nature of some of its content, reinforcing Will's belief that words have profound power to influence the course of events. As an undergraduate at Syracuse University, Will studied both magazine journalism and creative writing, and after winning the prestigious Whiffen Poetry Prize he earned a dual Bachelor of Arts degree with honors in both fields. His prize-winning poem The Muskrat became the centerpiece of his book-length collection Dog Light, which was published by Wesleyan University Press while Will was completing his Master of Fine Arts degree and teaching creative writing classes at the University of Arizona. Will subsequently served for over twenty-five years as an Artist-in-Residence with the Arizona Commission on the Arts, conducting over two hundred creative writing programs in schools throughout Arizona as well as regionally and nationally. He continued to publish in literary periodicals and anthologies, receiving the Academy of American Poets Margaret Sterling Award, the Tucson/Pima Arts Council Poetry Fellowship, and the Arizona Commission on the Arts Award of Merit for Poetry; his poem The Quiet Power is the Dedicatory Poem of the Tucson/Pima Main Library. Will had the life-changing experiences of serving as Poetry Therapist at the Kino Psychiatric Hospital for two years when he first moved to Tucson, and then serving for sixteen years as a creative writing instructor in the Arizona State Prison under the mentorship of internationally-renowned poet and Prison Writers Program founder Richard Shelton. These and other outside-the-box learning experiences, along with the achievements of the thousands of students he has taught, have affirmed Will's belief that language well-used can transform, heal, inspire, and change the world in unpredictably positive ways.

In a Word is available as:
• a reading
• a workshop
• an artist-in-residency
• print publications