Will Gardner

Will "Mac" Gardner was born in Lexington, KY, the son of William and Stephanie (McGann) Gardner, and a 1993 graduate of Lafayette High School. He received his BA from Texas Christian University, an MFA in Creative Writing, Poetry from Pacific University, and an MFA in Creative Writing, Prose from University of Southern Connecticut, where he also served as the Editor-in-Chief of the 2014 Noctua Review. Mac's work was published in The Portland Mercury, the New Haven Daily Nutmeg, and several literary journals. He most recently worked for Frameline and SPARC in San Francisco. A lifelong competitive swimmer, Mac was a member of the San Francisco Tsunami Aquatics. He was a generous community member actively volunteering with Openhouse of San Francisco, where he worked with the Friendly Visitors' program, and New York city's Anti-Violence Project, where he worked with the crisis intervention hot line. Though Mac's life was too short, he packed a tremendous amount of adventure into his 41 years. He crisscrossed the country many times by car and train, and traveled the world collecting friends and stories. He lived in many places after Lexington, including Fort Worth, TX; Washington DC; Ireland; Ukraine; Eugene and Portland, OR; New Haven, CT and Oakland, CA.