A Brief Bio
 William F. DeVault was born in Greenville, South Carolina on August 16, 1955. He was raised in various locales about the United States, but spent a good part of his younger life in Morgantown, West Virginia, where he graduated from Morgantown High School in 1973 and briefly attended West Virginia University. He has married (and divorced) twice and has fathered three children. Including his forthcoming books for the summer of 2005, he has eight books to his credit and an estimated 10,000 poetic compositions in his catalogue. His website, the City of Legends, has over 400 of his works, as well as relevant links and information and information on some of his peers and proteges. He has appeared in over 300 magazines, newspapers and ezines and has readers on every continent on Earth. He is notably more popular in Ireland, Australia and India than in his native US. He was declared "the Romantic Poet of the Internet" by the #1 Index of the World Wide Web, Yahoo, in September of 1996, has been the poet of the month for Fattlands, the Poetry Webring, Partners In Verse, Poetic Reflections, and twice for larryjaffe's Incognito Cafe. He has been named in the top five poets, twice, in the Preditors and Editors Online Readers' Poll, including being named Best Poet and winning Best Poem in 2001. He is often referred to by his readers as "The Amomancer" and "the Iron Lion", both references from his poems. He is a coiner of words, including nemicorn (a black unicorn or personification of mythic, obsessive love), amomancy (the weaving of words to create emotion) and theocricide (literally, the killing of God, a willful act against one's own belief system). His works feature a complex mythology of lovers and near-lovers, all cloaked as totem-muses, usually fantastic or exotic beasts. When America Online's Writers Club formed their own press in 1997, he was the sole poet they approached. His book with them, from out of the city, was later subsumed into the volume from an unexpected quarter when Writers Club Press was acquired by iUniverse. In 2005 he ended his three book association with iUniverse in protest over what he stated was their "reduced openness to new talents seeking to break in" and threw his lot in with POD publisher lulu.com . This year sees his release of his volumes INVOCATO, The Morgantown Suite Poems and his long-anticipated The Compleat Panther Cycles. Quotes about the Poet " One amazing poet, a retriever of memory and architect of visions, to the beauty of human and godly complexities." - Aberjhani, author, Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance "William F. DeVault's poetry embodies the essence of romance..." - Brandy Walton, senior poetry editor, EWG Presents "Sensuous and intoxicating... William DeVault's poetry burns with romance, mystique, and passion." - Robin C. Travis-Murphee, editor, Poetic Voices "A master...the future of the Digital Renaissance." - Poetry Now! "William DeVault is one of a new generation of poets, raised on the Internet. What he has done is not only wonderful on its own, but the cock's crow of the future in literature." - Richard Russell, editor, The Blue Review "Awe-inspiring poetry done by a master of the English language. " - Claiborne Schley-Walsh, author/poet "Sheer excellence " - Chris Beaulieu, editor, Poetic Reflections "The most extraordinary extemporaneous poet I have ever encountered and the most prolific of all contemporary poets...He leads the cyberspace coffeehouses with the virtual reality of his verse..." - Bruce C. Autry, editor in chief, Poetry Heaven "One thing that rises above the uncertainty of life and that is his poetry. I have seen him literally take words apart, turn them inside out, transforming subtle shades of meaning into raw colors of emotion." - Larry Jaffe, poet/author "William F. DeVault, known as the "amomancer" is a living legend who will live beyond time, as his words are forever captured by his prolific pen. - Lupi Basil, CEO/Editor, Wings of Dawn Publishing, 'Emotions' Magazine Quotes from the Poet (courtesy BrainyQuote.com) "The existence of a single atheist does not disprove the existence of God." "A quote is but a tattoo on the tongue." "If you do not face your demons, they will devour you in your sleep." "Horatius died a suicide, in some philosophies." The Digital Renaissance The explosion of communications around the world, brought on by the internet, bears all the earmarks of a renaissance, perhaps the largest and most powerful one in recorded history. No one is more acutely aware of this than William F. DeVault, who receives as many "hits" on his webpages every day from other countries as from the United States, who is more popular in many foreign countries than his home land, and who has been able to build this international following outside of the carefully structured pillars of the traditional publishing houses that until not so many years ago dictated who would be read. The classic case study for this is the poet's "Panther Cycles". Originally just a few sets of poems he wrote to woo an online romantic interest, as he wrote more and shared more with the community of writers on America Online's legendary Writers Club (arguable modern time's replacement for the Algonquin Roundtable), where writers such as Tom Clancy, John Gilstrap, Margaret Moseley, Aldo Alvarez and Harlan Coben moved in an equalized suspension of thought and words, those friends shared his works with their friends and lovers and soon he found himself under a daily barrage of requests from around the world for "more" of his works. In the nearly nine years since he established his original "City of Legends" website at Earthlink, later to be brought over under his own www.cityoflegends.com domain, he has been read by millions of readers from around the world, on all continents. With the summer marking the tenth anniversary of the writing of the first of the "Panther Cycles" which became a poetic diary of the dysfunctional love affair that ended his first marriage, the poet has released the 93 cycles of over 640 poems in a single, novel-length collection entitled "The Compleat Panther Cycles" to mark this anniversary and the remarkable impact of the "digital renaissance". |
Upcoming Milestones and Events February 12, 2006 the poet will be withdrawing from distribution his volumes "From an Unexpected Quarter" and "Love Gods of a Forgotten Religion". The Books (so far) The Compleat Panther Cycles (lulu.com, 2005, ISBN#1-411-63794-1)  Considered by many to be the most ambitious collection of poetry assembled by one author in modern times, this is the authoritative volume of The Panther Cycles, those nearly six hundred and fifty works that served as a poetic diary of a love affair that doomed the poet's first marriage and made him an international cult figure. With each cycle annotated and cover and internal illustrations featuring New York techno-artist Jillian Ann, this massive 619 page glossy coffee-table book revives the notion of the poet as the fearless artist who willingly shares his innermost thoughts, passions and despairs with the audience in compelling eloquence. From the gentle to the crushing. From the lilting to the grindingly erotic, these works capture the first real high-water mater of the Digital Renaissance. The Morgantown Suite Poems (lulu.com, 2005, ISBN#1-411-63374-1)  When in Morgantown, West Virginia, where he grew up, as part of his 2002 "Love Gods of a Forgotten Religion" Tour, he sat at the Blue Moose Cafe and wrote a few pieces about his impressions of the city. These pieces increased exponentially as he reflected back after the trip, and became the core for this book, due out in June of 2005. The cover is from a newspaper photo taken by Dominion Post lensman Ron Rittenhouse in April of 1974 of the poet walking home after classes at WVU one day, having come prepared for bad weather, but having been pleasantly surprised by the warm April afternoon. All proceeds from this book will be routed to Arts Monongahela, a local arts advocacy group that helped set up his tour visits in Morgantown in 2002. PanthEon (PanteraPress, 1977, ISBN#0-965-95760-8)  When preparing to headline the Southern Poets' Reading Tour, the poet was approached by the woman who was the inspiration of the Panther Cycles, who mentioned that she had be thinking for some time of adding publishing to the services provided by her graphics arts and advertising firm in Florida and would like to publish a book of his works. The poet agreed, on three conditions:
from an unexpected quarter (iUniverse, 2000, ISBN#0-595-00231-5)  Soon after PanthEon debuted, William F. DeVault was approached by the Writers Club on America Online, which was starting its own press. They put out from out of the city which was almost immediately pulled from release when iUniverse bought out the Writers Club catalog. They informed the poet that he would need to add more material to the book to make their minimums...so he added more than one hundred addition works and renamed the book, taking advantage of his grandfathered-in status. This volume includes the entirety of the Goldenheart Cycles. Love Gods of a Forgotten Religion (iUniverse, 2002, ISBN#0-595-22252-8)  Dissatisfied with what he described as the "scattershot" content of from an unexpected quarter, the poet decided to put out a strong, coherent collection, springboarding from his win for both poet of the year and poem of the year (for "the Patchwork Skirt of My Love") in the 2001 Preditors and Editors readers poll. Taking the book's title from a poem in the book this was clearly a volume more to his tastes and attitudes than any previous collection. His East Coast tour in support of this book's release took him from New York to Virginia, and featured his first open reading of his works in his hometown, Morgantown, West Virginia, in over twenty years. 101 Great Love Poems (iUniverse, 2002, ISBN#0-595-25882-4 (paperback) and ISBN#0-595-65402-9 (hardcover))  One day the poet's webmaster made the point that none of his books had reference to "poems" or "poetry" in their titles. Also, that he had not put out a hardcover book that would be an ideal gift for graduations or weddings. Killing three birds with one stone, this book was born. Available in both hardcover and paperback editions, it has proven to be one of his most popular, containing a broad cross section of some of his lighter romantic material. INVOCATO (lulu.com, 2005, ISBN#0-411-62931-0)  Originally, this book was not to come out until later in the year than it did. But poets are creatures of whim, and after stewing for a while over recent increases that iUniverse was forcing upon entry-level self-publishers, he bolted the pack and headed to web-based POD publisher lulu.com This book was designed and assembled to be the verbal baseball bat to apply to the temples of anyone who dismissed the poet's works as inconsequential. He selected and collected some of his most respected works, then added his 400-line masterwork "Diogenes" and his cult favourite "TRIUMPH" to the mix. Reviews have been very favourable and, in time, it is expected this book will find its audience as the poet adapts to life outside of iUniverse. |
Contact: You can send him your comments or questions directly at williamfdevault@cityoflegends.com He can be reached by telephone at (304)288-7093 Some interesting facts William F. DeVault has been both a movie reviewer and humor columnist for America Online. His extemporaneous Top Ten Lists column for the AOL Writers Club numbered more than 500 separate columns. In the fall of 2002, he was one of a handful of writers selected to take part in the Edinburgh International Internet Festival of the Arts in Scotland. When his works were banned by nuns in a Catholic Convent School in Dundalk, Ireland, he responded with the poem a touch of Heather which appears in from an unexpected quarter. He has worked on over $1,000,000,000 (one billion dollars) worth of winning proposals for corporate clients. He was the founder and original host for AOL's Romantic and Erotic Poetry Group chat, which was granted a Terms of Service waiver to allow for the steamy content of some of the contributing writers. He was four times the featured guest on AOL's The Writers Life chat, which at other times featured such authors as Tom Clancy and Aldo Alvarez. He has twice joined the Southern Poets Reading Tour, appearing with such contemporaries as John Horvath, Karla Frances Sasser, Larry Sampson and Claiborne Schley-Walsh. He has performed readings of his work in such diverse places as convent schools, sports bars, libraries and veteran's homes. The foreword of his fourth book, Love Gods of a Forgotten Religion, was written by Larry Jaffe, the International Readings Coordinator for the United Nations' Dialogue Among Civilizations Through Poetry. Some Anecdotes and Background His first poem was written in the third grade at Ivan B. Kincheloe Elementary school at Kincheloe Air Force Base, Michigan. In response to an assignment to write about a picture of a tugboat, pasted to a sheet of paper, he scribbled a little ditty he called "O, Ship!" The teacher called in the music teacher and they placed it to music. The poet and two classmates (they had to dress as sailors) had to sing it for the Parent-Teacher May Day assembly that year. He jokes he was so traumatized that he quit writing poetry for years after that. A Touch of Heather was a poem he wrote in response to an incident in the real world. After having been approached by a club advisor at a convent school in Ireland, who wished to use some of his poems in a fund raiser for Valentine's Day, the poet was subsequently disappointed to find that, upon a fuller reading of his works, the powers that be (the nuns at the school) had decided that the poet's works were inappropriate and had banned his works at the school. A few months later he was contacted by his publisher, who mentioned offhand that they had received an order for his book "from out of the city"...from someone in the same small city in Ireland. So he wrote a poem about a young woman, hiding her black market copy of his works from the nuns. Of course, there's no guarantee that it wasn't one of the nuns buying the book (they are human, after all). His first romantic poems were "I speak her name in softest voice" and "I fear". They were both written when he was seventeen, to a girl he was having problems getting to take him seriously as boyfriend material. He called her up and read the poems to her. She hung up the phone. Less than a minute later, her mother called to demand what he had said to her daughter. When he asked why, she told him that the girl was in her room, with the door locked, crying her eyes out. He says that's when he realized what he was supposed to do with his life (write poetry, not make women cry). "In the arms of the dragon" has an interesting and revealing back story to it. The poet often finds himself suddenly thinking of a poem out of nowhere, sometimes even in a situation where he has not the resources to write it down (and his memory is lousy)...so usually the orphan poem is lost. But, one day, while driving in traffic down Lincoln Avenue in Los Angeles, on his way home, this poem came to him. Recognizing it as an unually nice piece, he bagn to recite it to himself, outloud, as his mind assembled it. Twenty minutes later he arrived home, still chanting the newborn poem, and raced inside to jot it down (he still has the sheet of the original creation.) The poem itself is a mystery to him, as he was emotionally involved with several women at the time, and still is uncertain whom he was writing to. As he writes from the preconscious, this is not as rare as you might imagine Some Interesting Links West Virginia Wesleyan on William F. DeVault William F. DeVault's Web Log
His Web Log (Blog) http://cityoflegends.blogspot.com
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