Will Justice Drake was a finalist for the 2016 NC State Poetry Contest, judged by Yusef Komunyakaa. His poems, essays, and articles have appeared in the Southern Poetry Anthology, the Dead Mule School of Southern Literature, Raleigh Review, Mid/South Anthology, and New York Daily News, among others. He played Benedick in the University of Mobile 2011 production of Much Ado About Nothing. He received his MFA from North Carolina State University and his double major BA in English and humanities from the University of Mobile.

 

He has settled again in north Alabama, where he teaches English and coaches soccer. During the last several years in Mobile, Fairhope, and Raleigh, he taught creative writing, helped found a high school, marketed communications technology, wrote for university public relations, and covered local and national events as a stringer.