Richard Willett

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 15th, 2025.

Richard Willett wrote A Friend of Dorothy’s when he was in his twenties. Excerpts appeared in the legendary gay literary magazine Christopher Street and in Permafrost at the University of Alaska, as well as being short-listed for New American Library’s Men on Men: Best New Gay Fiction. But the novel dismayed just as many editors, who especially clutched their pearls over its overtly sexual final chapter, and the book itself never found a home. Until now. 

“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 Medusa

“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

ISBN: 979-8-9923398-0-2 (hardcover)
$27.99 (usa) $39.99 (can) £21.99 (uk) $43.99 (aus)
ISBN: 979-8-9923398-1-9 (paperback)
$17.99 (usa) $25.99 (can) £16.99 (uk) $27.99 (aus)
ISBN:  979-8-9923398-2-6 (e-book)
$ 6.99 (usa) $11.99 (can) $12.99 (aus)

CLICK HERE  to find a local bookstore where you can pre-order A Friend of Dorothy’s. 

CLICK HERE to pre-order paperback, hardcover, or ebook editions of A Friend of Dorothy’s from an online bookstore.

UPCOMING WORKS

The Gazebo

After placing in the finals of twelve different short screenplay competitions (including the Austin Film Festival, the Page International, the Shore Scripts Short Film Fund, and the ScreenCraft Short Film Production Fund), Richard’s script THE GAZEBO is shooting in New York in June, directed by William Pennell and starring Maria Gobetti and Matthew Maguire.

Here’s Looking At You

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.