Willie Carver: “Gay Poems for Red States”

This is part of a series of videos we will be post­ing to our YouTube chan­nel over the next few weeks. Ten local sto­ry­tellers par­tic­i­pat­ed in the sec­ond annu­al “The Voices of Winchester: A Night of Storytelling” event was held on October 6, 2023 at the Leeds Center for the Arts in down­town Winchester.

Willie Edward Taylor Carver Jr. is an author, advo­cate, and the 2022 Kentucky Teacher of the Year. He has a B.A. in French and in English, an MAT in French and in English, a Rank 1 in French Linguistics, and is cur­rent­ly fin­ish­ing a Masters in Fine Arts at the University of Kentucky. Willie has pub­lished research and pre­sent­ed a great deal on the sub­jects of edu­ca­tion, mar­gin­al­iza­tion, and iden­ti­ty, and his sto­ry has been fea­tured on ABC, CBS, PBS, NPR, and in The Washington Post, Le Monde, and Good Morning America. His advo­ca­cy has led him to engage President Biden and to tes­ti­fy before the United States House Subcommittee on Civil Rights and Civil Liberties. He is a board mem­ber of the Kentucky Youth Law Project, the author of “Gay Poems for Red States,” a 2023 Riot Book of the Year, and believes that all peo­ple deserve equal rights and dignity.

Willie was one of our local sto­ry­tellers at the 2023 Voices of Winchester: A Night of Storytelling event.