William Johnson Everett taught Christian social ethics for over thirty years in theological schools in the US, Germany, India, and South Africa, before turning to fiction, poetry, and other forms of creative writing. His many books and articles in ethics have been followed by an eco-centric work of historical fiction, Red Clay, Blood River (2008) and Turnings: Poems of Transformation, which appeared from Wipf and Stock in 2013. With the publication of Sawdust and Soul: A Conversation on Woodworking and Spirituality (Wipf and Stock, 2014) written with John De Gruchy, he is now working on a memoir about his grandfather's work at a copper mine on Cyprus in the 1920s. When not writing, he constructs furniture for worship settings. His online journal is at www.WilliamEverett.com and his gallery, shared with his wife Sylvia is at www.WisdomsTable.net.
"Good poets, like Bill Everett, perform a kind of chicanery of the spirit, distracting our attention just long enough to allow revelation to slip past the guards of preoccupied minds. As in: 'Earth gasping . . . sends lilies up in mourning / the rainbow as a pledge / the cockroach as a warning / the raven as a hedge.'"
--Ken Sehested, author of In the Land of the Living: Prayers Personal and Public
"William Everett's beautifully structured Turnings gathers together limpid poems of memory that shine like pebbles underneath the clearest flow of water, as well as poems of personal faith and theological wisdom. Rising up from the pages like long-forgotten messages, they glow in the light of Everett's language: lyrical, crystal clear, as if on the brink of turning into nothing less than song itself."
--Kathryn Stripling Byer, author of Descent and Wildwood Flower
"Everett is a master of words, fitting the right words together the way a master mason fits stones to shape beautiful structures. Poems he constructs reflect solid integrity. Readers can depend on his writing to convey thoughtful expressions, ethical conclusions, and invigorating structural styles selected to match the themes of each piece. His poetry reassures us that all good poetry does not belong to the past."
--J. C. Walkup, Penny Morse, and Buffy Queen, editors of Fresh Magazine
"Everett is a daring poet who leads us deeper into the language of experience. His poems are full of wonder and insight, celebrating the beauty in nature while discovering grace in the mundane. At times meditative, at other turns inventively irreverent, Turnings leads us to reexamine the past and ponder the present, whether it's a biblical story or a personal memory. Turn these pages and find poems of transformation."
--Michael Beadle, poet and author