UA Press Author Spotlight: James McWilliams & A. P. Walton

On the Life, Poetry & Letters of Frank Stanford

James McWilliams and A. P. Walton discuss their recent publications on the life and work of poet Frank Stanford.

Join us for a moderated discussion with University of Arkansas Press authors James McWilliams and A. P. Walton. They’ll be speaking about their recent works published by the Press: The Life and Poetry of Frank Stanford (2025), The Battlefield Where the Moon Says I Love You (2026), and Letters of a Poet Dying: The Selected Correspondence of Frank Stanford (2026).

Zach Harrod, Stanford film documentarian, will moderate. Books will be available for purchase. The authors will sign books following the program.

This event will be livestreamed. Watch it here →

"Frank Stanford was one of the most recognized and prolific emerging poets of his generation until his suicide at the age of twenty-nine. Though all but two of his books remain out of print, his poems, which pitch startling and often surreal imagery against stark Southern landscapes, have sustained Stanford’s reputation and influence among poets who knew him during his lifetime and have ushered in a resurgence of admirers among a new generation of poets." - Encyclopedia of Arkansas

About the authors

James McWilliams is the author of The Life and Poetry of Frank Stanford (Finalist, 2026 Pulitzer Prize for Biography). His writing has appeared in Oxford American, Virginia Quarterly Review, Harper’s Magazine, and The Paris Review. A winner of the Hiett Prize in the Humanities, he is professor of history at Texas State University.

A. P. Walton, a poet, studied literature at Lund University, where he authored a seminal thesis on Frank Stanford. He is the editor of Letters of a Poet Dying (2026), the first-ever edition of Stanford’s selected letters.

McWilliams and Walton co-edited Stanford's The Battlefield Where the Moon Says I Love You. "A one-of-a-kind outlaw epic, The Battlefield has hidden in the literary shadows for half a century as a mystical artifact. Now, in this first scholarly edition, Stanford’s visionary masterpiece returns, fortified by the editorial precision and contextual care it deserves." - University of Arkansas Press

About UA Press

The University of Arkansas Press advances the mission of the University of Arkansas by publishing peer-reviewed scholarship and literature of enduring value. They curate a list of books by authors of diverse backgrounds writing for specialty as well as general audiences in Arkansas and throughout the world. Learn more →

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