Writer
Writing about poets, the South, and the American past
Austin · New Orleans
Finalist · 2026 Pulitzer Prize in Biography
The Life and Poetry of Frank Stanford
Nearly a decade of research and writing on an American original. A Kirkus Best Book of 2025. University of Arkansas Press.
“It’s as essential as biographies get.” — William Boyle, Poetry
“Its meticulous attention to every detail astonishes.” — Elijah Burrell, Southwest Review
Edited by James McWilliams & A. P. Walton
The Battlefield Where the Moon Says I Love You
Frank Stanford’s The Battlefield Where the Moon Says I Love You is a truly original Southern epic with immense cultural and creative range. Revered by a devoted cult following since it was first published posthumously in 1978, the poem unfolds over more than fifteen thousand lines without stanza breaks or punctuation, creating an unstoppable linguistic flow that mirrors the chaos and beauty it depicts. In this third edition, meticulously edited by James McWilliams and A. P. Walton, Stanford’s sprawling vision is revived not as a lost relic but as a towering work fiercely alive in its ethical and aesthetic extremes.
Writing
Can You Feel That
Poetry Foundation
Both Everywhere and Somewhere
Virginia Quarterly Review
Ellen Gilchrist’s Real Man
Oxford American
Photographic Memory
Oxford American
Roger That
The Paris Review
Clunkers
New York Times Book Review
Saving the Self in the Age of the Selfie
The American Scholar
Interviews
Wes Tirey interviews James McWilliams
High Horse · Interview
Pulitzer finalist James McWilliams on Frank Stanford
Ozarkian Folk Chronicles · Podcast · Episode 141
About
James McWilliams is a historian at Texas State University, where he has taught since 1999. His work has appeared in The Virginia Quarterly Review, Oxford American, The Paris Review, The New York Times Book Review and The American Scholar.
He divides his time between Austin and New Orleans, is writing a book on the poet Everette Maddox, and is building an archive of interviews he is recording with inmates at The Mississippi State Penitentiary (Parchman Farm).
James McWilliams
Writer. Austin & New Orleans.
© 2026 James McWilliams