First Cut – December 2021
“So Fast, So Close. . . . The title is meant to reflect my growing up too fast and all the close calls that occurred along the way—the brushes with violence and the law and death, how by all logic I simply shouldn’t be alive. I continually shake my head in disbelief that I’m still here, to be honest.”
The Sundress Blog – June 2021
“When I first read Bill’s work, I was blown away by the tenderness he has for the most broken of characters, something that’s caused other writers to liken his work to Tom Waits’s music (okay, I’m a sucker for Tom Waits, too). But Bill’s writing is so much more than just that authorial empathy—he’s got a great ear for language, a brilliant understanding of story structure and tension, and, plainly put, his stories are electric.”
Lit Reactor – May 2021
“Much like a motorcyclist will effortlessly weave through standstill traffic, my favorite writers tend to be ones who curve between staunch genres to find their unique voice. Since his debut short story collection, In Just The Right Light (Unsolicited Press, 2019), William R. Soldan has propelled himself steadily through the exhaust, wielding a more contemplative, “lived in” literary-style than others tend to take with crime and noir. A two-time Pushcart nominee, Soldan continued showing his range with Lost in the Furrows (2020, Cowboy Jamboree), and his debut poetry collection So Fast, So Close (Close to the Bone, 2020). His latest collection, Houses Burning and Other Ruins (Shotgun Honey, 2021), shows his distinctions opening up wider, further honing his grief-strciken storytelling where the bleak American experience occasionally collides with glimmers of righteous humanity.”
Col’s Criminal Library – May 2021
“Houses Burning and Other Ruins. . . . It’s a gritty collection set predominantly in the Midwest, Ohio specifically, full of characters down on their luck or at rock bottom. Criminals, addicts, regular folks in dire circumstances faced with tough choices who often make the wrong one and have to face the consequences. It’s real light, uplifting stuff. . . . Haha.”
Focus on Fiction – April 2019
“In Just the Right Light….Over the course of the last year or so, I’ve been developing this fictional northeast Ohio town, sort of an amalgam of many of the small towns I lived in as a kid, and in which most of these new stories are set…”
Volney Road Review – March 2019
“The Midwest region, particularly northeast Ohio, where you have Pennsylvania and West Virginia and New York State all sharing the same little corner, is rich in detail and history. It’s the perfect place to set stories, both urban and rural, which is why I write just as many urban stories as I do rural ones. A lot of writers write from their places. This is my place, the one I feel the most ownership over, so I don’t suspect I’ll stop writing from it any time soon.”
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Coffin Bell Journal – December 2018
“I’d rather use a story to gut someone than use it as a pillow.”
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The Devil Strip – August 2017
“I write stories about lonely people with an abundance of problems struggling to get through life with few options . . .”
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Focus on Fiction – February 2015
“Most of my favorite short story writers are also novelists, people like Benjamin Percy, Donald Ray Pollock, Bonnie Jo Campbell, Richard Lange, Junot Díaz, and others. My favorite who wrote largely in short form, however, would likely be Flannery O’Conner. Her work is great and has in no small way influenced most of the other writers I’ve mentioned as well as my own work.”
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Versatile Virtuoso – July 2015
“I’d like to say I sprang from the womb with writerly ambitions, but I first fell in love with the idea around age 12. I stress the word “idea” because, although I was a ravenous reader my whole life, I never really tried to write anything of my own. When I was about 12, I was reading Stephen King’s The Shining and discovered my mom’s electric typewriter at about the same time. The result was about a paragraph of something called “The Deadman’s Shortcut” or something equally ridiculous. I had no idea what I was doing, but King’s novel was the first book to make me cling to the idea of writing stories.”
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Jenny Zine – December 2014
“I don’t need to venture far to tell the stories I feel inclined to tell . . .”
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William R. Soldan 