William Ospina is a Colombian poet, essayist and novelist. He was born in Herveo, Tolima. He won the Romulo Gallegos Prize for his novel El país de la canela, part of a trilogy about the invasion and conquest of South America.
William Paley was an English Anglican clergyman, Christian apologist, philosopher, and utilitarian. He is best known for his natural theology exposition of the teleological argument for the existence of God in his work Natural Theology or Evidences of the Existence and Attributes of the Deity, which made use of the watchmaker analogy.
William Pembroke Fetridge (1827-1896) was a travel writer, publisher, bookseller and periodicals distributor. He lived in the Boston, Massachusetts area and in Paris, France.
William Penn was an English writer, religious thinker, and influential Quaker who founded the Province of Pennsylvania during the British colonial era. Penn was an advocate of democracy and religious freedom known for his amicable relations and successful treaties with the Lenape Native Americans who had resided in present-day Pennsylvania prior to European settlements in the state.
William Pepperell Montague was a philosopher of the New Realist school. Montague stressed the difference between his philosophical peers as adherents of either "objective" and "critical realism".
William Peter Blatty was an American writer, director and producer. He is best known for his 1971 novel, The Exorcist, and for his 1973 screenplay for the film adaptation of the same name. Blatty won an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for The Exorcist, and was nominated for Best Picture as its producer. The film also earned Blatty a Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture – Drama as producer.
William Peterfield Trent, LL.D., D.C.L. was an American academic and the author/editor of many books. He was a professor of English literature at Sewanee: The University of the South and Columbia University. While at Sewanee, he founded the Sewanee Review in 1892, a literary journal that continues to operate.
William Louis Petersen is an American actor. He is best known for his role as Gil Grissom in the CBS drama thriller series CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (2000–2015), for which he won a Screen Actors Guild Award and was nominated for a Golden Globe Award; he was further nominated for three Primetime Emmy Awards as a producer of the show. He reprised his role as Gil Grissom in the sequel CSI: Vegas, which premiered on October 6, 2021.
William Pett Ridge was an English fiction writer, born at Chartham, near Canterbury, Kent, and educated at Marden, Kent, and at the Birkbeck Institute, London. He was for some time a clerk in the Railway Clearing House, and began about 1891 to write humorous sketches for the St James's Gazette and other papers.