Help Fulfill a Wish and Make a Dream come True

Hello, my name is Kathy, and I am fundraising to make a dream come true for someone who was once a stranger. He is a poet, and his name is Will Cordill. Will has stage 4 inoperable colon cancer, and he has a dream, a dream of having his work publish in a book. This is a story about how that book will be published with the help of all of you. You will start out as a stranger but will be a stranger no more after this book is published and you will know dreams do come true.

This a very special book in so many ways and I am honored to help make it happen. This book is the materialization of a dream made possible by random strangers crossing paths and coming together to pull this dream from the ether into the real world.

I met Will through his Facebook group page ‘When We All Lived in the Forest’. One day there was a post about his colon cancer and his GoFundMe Page for help with expenses. I thought maybe I could help increase donations and posted a plea on his behalf, that is when Will and I became friends.

As we began messaging, I found him to be a kind kindred soul, suffering greatly from the cancer as he waited to have his colon removed. Because he had once been an addict, he was restricted in the use of painkillers and went through the pain of the cancer, surgery, chemotherapy, and recovery without the benefit of opioid pain relief. It was heartbreaking, yet inspiring, as he travelled this road in grace.

James, Will’s partner for over 13 years, now his caregiver, was doing all the heavy lifting and would let me know how Will was doing when he was struggling in silence. With no income and no transportation, food, supplies and bills have become a heavy weight and a difficult challenge at this time.

After the operation and the chemo, Will began to heal and gain weight but then two spots were found on his lungs. As we waited to hear the biopsy results, I had the idea of putting his poems in a book to give him a distraction from his pending results, raise his spirit with something to look forward to, and help raise some money for food and pay bills.

So, on a random page associated with publishing books, I put out a call for help and in no time Mandy Bloom in the United Kingdom volunteered to put the book together along with her assistant editor Boots.

By a stroke of fate, it just so happened that her daughter Lydia was an art student in Edinburgh, Scotland, with a gothic art interest that was perfect for Will’s literary genre.

I had put this idea out there, not really knowing what I was doing and yet after two weeks of late night and early morning conversations between the four of us across the Atlantic, this book was finished!

Professionally designed by Mandy Bloom and Lydia Carter and printed by Mixam in the UK, this 80-page paperback book on high quality paper, will be a wonderful addition to your collection, or a thoughtful coffee table book.

I would describe Will’s poetry as dark fairytale like, with reflections of reality. Knowing his story of struggles, addiction, and now a pain like no other, brings a depth to his work leaving the reader wondering what is real and what is fantasy. The familiarity in some of the verses has a way of drawing the reader back into their own childhood. The artwork produced by Lydia for selected poems visually accentuates Will’s work producing an overall enchanting and beautiful book

This is what Kelley T. Woods, a renowned Hypnotherapist and author from the United States had to say about Will Cordill’s poetry collection, SHADOWMUSE

Will Cordill’s anthology of poems spits in the face of suffering while simultaneously embracing it. A visceral journey through the mind gut, this shape-shifting collection takes one slip-sliding to the dungeon level of Plato’s Cave – where one can meet their shadow side in the full illumination of a deceptively glittering new dawn.

As a mother, I choked up with Fireflies, while the eroticism of From the Wolf made me wonder which character I’d prefer to be, the eater or the eaten. The pure illustrations by Lydia Carter pace the writing wonderfully without overpowering, a challenge when faced with such rich material.

Shadowmuse is an American Pie that has sat on the windowsill for a long, hot summer, picked at by greedy crows and just when it seems predictable, Cordill peels away another scab to reveal more surprises. His prose loops with a nursery rhyme cadence that evokes a bit of cognitive dissonance and adds to the lingering effects.

These poems are fodder for dreams and indeed, as I slumbered last night, they seeped into my dreamscape and, while nightmarish, left me feeling oddly satisfied but wanting more.

by Kelley T. Woods, August 2022

When the results came back that the colon cancer had spread to Will’s lungs, the whole meaning of the project changed, and it became vital that Will’s poetry was shared with and appreciated by a larger audience.

This book materialized from the kindness and caring of strangers, who are no longer strangers. We hope that every person who helps by donating $25 or more, to receive this book as a gift, will love it as much as we all do and will experience and share the kindness and caring that is out there, yes, it is out there, and it is in you.

For those of you that donate less than $25 you are helping to increase the amount of money Will receives from this fundraiser and as important as this book is for Wills spirit, Will and James are in desperate need of money for food and expenses, so your donation is so greatly needed and appreciated too.

Please consider donating to help Will's Book be published and his dream come true.

For every $25 book donation, the donor will receive a copy of his book as a gift once our goal has been met (this might take a little time, please see the bullets below).

We are launching this book in the USA, UK, and we will ship to Europe and Canada too. We will not be using Amazon as the cost is too great. We are printing in the UK as it is cheaper even with shipping cost than to produce the book in the USA. (The cost of printing and shipping the book is listed at the bottom of this page.)

How This Will Work

I will make sure Will receives all proceeds from your donations for books after publishing and all other donations to all the strangers sharing your kindness and compassion for another in need.

Will thanks you in advance, we all thank you for making this dream a reality.

The cost of printing and shipping Wills book: