Will Willoughby

@willwilloughby.bsky.social

1478 Followers 2145 Following

Writer/Editor • Maine Literary Award winner • Short stories in Epiphany, Pithead Chapel, Pangyrus, etc. • Debut collection, WHILE I HAVE YOU, forthcoming from Littoral Books Portfolio: www.willwilloughby.com Escape room: www.riddlehaven.com

A midsize brown hound stands with all four legs on a picnic table. He is clearly the king of the picnic table, but he's also looking right at the camera like a doofus. The fisheye lens makes him look especially derpy, and his tongue is poking out.
The cover of the summer 2026 issue of Audience Askew shows a montage of classic black-and-white movie scenes issuing from an antique camera.
Littoral Books logo, a line drawing of an open book with the letter ell written on the pages.
View from inside a backyard recreational shed. A brown midsize dog lies on a soft blanket by the open doors. Outside is a recently mown lawn.
Hard copy of manuscript titled Unless There’s Anything Else. Also printed out is a brief, professionally written cover letter.
Sign-up form for newsletter. Above the filed for email address, it reads, Enter your email to receive an occasional newsletter where I reflect on the writing process and give updates on my work. Your email's safe with me, and I won't spam you. (I'm not an evil corporation. Not yet, anyway.)
A backyard wood-paneled recreational shed in twilight with a hanging lantern and cozy interior
Data from Star Trek: The Next Generation. The caption reads, I CANNOT EVEN.
Orange sun on a dark horizon with a few wispy clouds above
Status of Submittable submissions showing, from the top, Received, In-Progress (blue), and Declined (gray).
A list of status icons for various submissions in Submittable. Five of the eight icons show an in-progress status (blue). Three are showing as received.
Top menu at WillWilloughby.com. At the top, it reads Will Willoughby, Editor | Writer. The top menu reads, from left to right, Home, About, Portfolio, Reflections, and Contact. A line drawing shows a bald man with glasses looking thoughtfully at a laptop screen.
A protester in a Donald Trump mask with sign reading DEPORT ME
Screenshot of Bluesky feed showing a post from Rachel Abbey McCafferty just above a post from JMWW Journal for a poem by Aaron Lelito. Both posts show a dark-gray sky and and leafless branches.
A brown dog sleeping on a couch. We see him resting his head on the arm of the couch, with his right paw curled up over the edge and his left paw crossing under his head to poke out under a big floppy ear. His other ear is folded over against the couch cushion. To the right is the corner of a window.
Front yard on a sunny summer day showing a full catalpa tree, a deep green lawn, and a clear sky.
On the left is half the face of a stern bald man wearing black-rimmed glasses, with a stuffed moose on the right glaring at the camera
Old mill building at dusk with castle-like tower on the right, strings of holiday lights at the bottom, leafless trees on the left, and a bright moon above.
Screenshot of Submittable page showing Declined status on four submissions.
Cover of Best American Short Stories for 2025, edited by Celeste Ng.
Close-up of Other Distinguished Stories of 2024 list. This listing is highlighted: Willoughby, Will, “Downstream Benefits” (Pangyrus, August 13).
A No Kings rally in a small New Hampshire town.
Spectacular sunrise over a lake, with a branch visible on the left, black rocks along the bottom, deep orange clouds along the horizon, and dark blue sky at the top.
Flaky pink clouds lit up at sunrise with deep blue sky above, and a thin, dark line of trees along the bottom
Predawn sky showing a crescent moon extremely close to a bright point of light (Venus) over a horizon of dark trees. The sky is mostly deep blue but is deep orange in the lower right.
Dark sky with stars, a small smudge of light, and a w-shaped constellation
A brown dog lying on a brown bed is resting his head on the edge of the mattress with his paw draped over the edge. He’s giving disinterested, lazy side-eye at the camera.
Vivid rainbow in storm clouds over a residential neighborhood
Downpour with the sun shining through trees at the edge of a backyard
Close-up of three animal skulls on a blue kitchen counter: a large tiger skull with big fangs, a smaller wolf skull with fangs that aren’t as big but still fierce, and a small turtle skull.
Website of Will Willoughby, writer and editor, including featured stories.
Points in Case article titled "For the Record, I'm the One Who Said That Legendarily Funny Thing, Not Chad"
We see a midsize brown dog with his snout resting in tall grass. He’s shooting suspicious side-eye.
A toddler in the 1970s has his head stuck in the back of a wooden kitchen chair. He’s looking at the camera with panic in his eyes. His father is leaning down to help but clearly thinks it’s funny.
Leafless maple branch coated in ice with the sun behind it in a hazy sky.
Seen from a distance, a lone figure walks from a dingy roadside restaurant under stark streetlight in the deepening twilight. Power lines stretch across the sky, which is deep blue at the top and red above the mountain range on the horizon.
View from a hiking trail over a canopy of trees that are just starting to change color in the fall. In the distance is a large lake with some islands in the center. A hazy blue sky.
A man walking down the aisle of a darkened theater is silhouetted against a bright movie screen.
A middle-aged bald man wearing black-framed glasses and black clothes stands in front of a mic reading from a book on a stage with burgundy curtains and violet lighting. He’s probably inwardly panicking, let’s face it.
A stream cuts through tidal flats, flowing toward the ocean in the distance. There's a thin layer of white clouds in an otherwise blue sky.
A brown hound sits upright with his legs straight out, person-like, on a kitchen floor as he looks up with unnecessarily soulful eyes.
A thick vault door is open, showing a room filled entirely with lock boxes.
A father holds his daughter on his hip at the zoo while they both look at something out of frame. A sign in the back says something about elephants.
A backyard fire pit glowing a little too bright for comfort. We can see, as if in daylight, a wooden fence, the grass, and green leaves of surrounding trees.
Goofy brown dog with gaping mouth in distorted fish-eye view
A simulated flame in a copper lantern hanging from a rustic cabin with a darkening dusk sky in the background
A brown hound is seen from directly overhead as he dozes on the carpet. We can see his head and a little bit of his forequarters. His ear is flopped up as if it’s being blown back by wind.
Two hands reaching toward each other against a black background, gently touching at the fingertips.
Time-lapse of the sky at dawn, showing clouds slipping away into the distance and the red sun rising
A strip of leather mounted to the inside of a lid on a dark-wood chest. It's got a burned-in caduceus symbol in the center and is lined on three sides with upholstery nails, creating a pocket in which papers could be kept.
Time lapse showing a laser cutter engraving a piece of leather. The engraved image is a caduceus.
The status column of my Submittable account consists of a stack of icons reading "Received."
A snow-covered backyard just after the sun has set. A small shed is in the lower right, with a hanging lantern. Silhouettes of trees line the horizon at the top of a small rise. The point of the picture, though, is the deep, deep blue of the sky, getting deeper blue as you go up, almost black. It's evocative of infinity or some such. Like, wow, man.
A large catalpa in the summer, the sunlight angling in from the right.
Buddy from the movie “Elf” closes one eye as he nervously tests a jack-in-the-box, afraid of what might explode in his face.
A brown dog sleeps with his upper body propped almost vertically on a pillow. His front legs are sticking out straight in front of him, one way up high on the pillow, the other down low.
An antique chest of drawers made of dark wood. In the top, a small glass bottle with a cork is placed into a three-by-four grid of similar bottles. After some mechanical sounds come from within the chest, the drawers pop open one by one.
An antique three-drawer chest made of dark wood. The drawer pulls are brass, and there are small brass cherub decorations on the drawer fronts. The chest is sitting in a wood floor in a dining area converted to work space. The lid on top is closed.
Black-and-white photo of a newborn in a bassinet on the lawn. His right hand is clumsily raised to his face. His eyes are closed. We can see the hand and bare knee of someone sitting cross-legged on the grass out of frame to the left.
Venus and moon at dusk, framed by conifers with snow on their branches