His novel A Friend of Dorothy’s, a coming of age novel set at the start of the AIDS epidemic in 1980s New York City, will be published on June 16th, 2025.
Richard Willett wrote A Friend of Dorothy’s when he was in his twenties. It was excerpted in the legendary gay literary magazine Christopher Street and in Permafrost, the literary journal of the University of Alaska, and it was slated to be published by Gay Men’s Press in England, when they were acquired by an American company that apparently wanted only to publish pornography. Richard’s book was off the list, and he put the manuscript in a drawer. He proceeded to publish ten short stories, have multiple play productions in New York and elsewhere, and win awards as a fiction writer, playwright, and screenwriter. His agent for the novel once said, after receiving a pile of rejection letters praising the book highly, “By the time this thing is finally published it’s going to be a period piece.” Well, here it is. Period and all.
“Nothing can have prepared you for the wit and insight, the eccentricity and inspiring optimism with which this consistently surprising young writer depicts a year at the heart of his generation’s greatest calamity.”—Joseph Pintauro, author of Cold Hands and Raft of the Madusa
“There is a knowingness, a sense of timing, a compassion and forgiveness under all the action, character to character. What Richard Willett has—in abundance—is love for the people he is chronicling and, by recording, saving.”—Allan Gurganus, author of The Practical Heart, Plays Well with Others, and Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All
“The writing is poignant, realistic and fine; the reader is pierced and instantly seduced by the characters’ appeal and immediacy.”—Harlan Greene, author of The German Officer’s Boy, What the Dead Remember, and Why We Never Danced the Charleston
RECENT WORKS
Richard’s play GRIEF AT HIGH TIDE was premiered in 2023 at Vivid Stage in Summit, New Jersey, and a production is planned for Los Angeles in 2024.
“’Grief at High Tide’ addresses the conflicts between art and reality, creativity and science, photographer and subject, privacy and fame. Willett’s play may not resolve these conflicts, but he certainly gives us something to think about the next time we point our cellphone camera and tap the button.” — Ruth Ross, NewJerseyArtsMaven.com
“A powerful and haunting drama about a young photographer’s attempts to reconcile her ambition and artistic sensibility with the deeply-held wishes of the person she is closest to. Masterfully constructed with no wasted words, this is a play that stays with you long after its conclusion.” — Rich Rubin, New Play Exchange
Just prior to the pandemic, Richard joined forces with Danish actress Annemette Andersen and Norwegian director Henning Hegland to begin work on HERE’S LOOKING AT YOU, in which the actress Ingrid Bergman takes the audience on a moving and surprising journey through her eventful life, a life that was in many ways ahead of its time. Having emerged from the delays of lockdown, the team has brought a producer, designers, and a development director on board and has been pursuing funding, with plans to develop the project further on stage in 2025, in Iceland and in Silkeborg, Denmark.