Joy Williams (born February 11, 1944) is an American novelist, short-story writer, and essayist. Best-known for her short fiction, she is also the author of novels including ''State of Grace, The Quick and the Dead,'' and ''Harrow.'' Williams has received a Guggenheim Fellowship for Creative Arts, a
Rea Award for the Short Story
The Rea Award for the Short Story is an annual award given to a living United States, American or Canada, Canadian author chosen for unusually significant contributions to short story fiction.
The Award
The Rea Award is named after Michael M. Rea ...
, a
Kirkus Award for Fiction, and a
Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction (formerly the Library of Congress Creative Achievement Award for Fiction and Library of Congress Lifetime Achievement Award for the Writing of Fiction) is an annual book award presented by the Librarian ...
.
Early life and education
Williams was born in
Chelmsford, Massachusetts
Chelmsford () is a town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States.
Chelmsford was incorporated in May 1655 by an act of the Massachusetts General Court. When Chelmsford was incorporated, its local economy was fueled by lumber mills, ...
. She grew up in Maine and was an only child. Her father was a Congregational minister with a church in Portland, Maine, and her grandfather was a Welsh Baptist minister.
She received a
BA from
Marietta College
Marietta College (MC) is a private liberal arts college in Marietta, Ohio, United States. Its campus encompasses approximately six city blocks next to downtown Marietta and enrolls 1,200 students.
History
Marietta College began as the Muskin ...
and a
MFA from the
University of Iowa
The University of Iowa (U of I, UIowa, or Iowa) is a public university, public research university in Iowa City, Iowa, United States. Founded in 1847, it is the oldest and largest university in the state. The University of Iowa is organized int ...
. At Iowa, Williams studied alongside
Raymond Carver
Raymond Clevie Carver Jr. (May 25, 1938 – August 2, 1988) was an American short story writer and poet. He published his first collection of stories, '' Will You Please Be Quiet, Please?'', in 1976. His breakout collection, '' What We Talk About ...
,
Ronald Verlin Cassill,
Vance Bourjaily, and
Richard Yates.
After graduating from Iowa, she married and moved to Florida, where she had a dog, a beach, and a Jaguar XK150. She wrote her first novel, ''State of Grace''.
Williams has taught creative writing at the
University of Houston
The University of Houston (; ) is a Public university, public research university in Houston, Texas, United States. It was established in 1927 as Houston Junior College, a coeducational institution and one of multiple junior colleges formed in ...
, the
University of Florida
The University of Florida (Florida or UF) is a public university, public land-grant university, land-grant research university in Gainesville, Florida, United States. It is a senior member of the State University System of Florida and a preem ...
, the University of Iowa, and the
University of Arizona
The University of Arizona (Arizona, U of A, UArizona, or UA) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Tucson, Arizona, United States. Founded in 1885 by the 13th Arizona Territorial Legislature, it ...
. For the 2008-09 academic year, Williams was the writer-in-residence at the University of Wyoming, and she continued thereafter as an affiliated faculty member of the English department. She lives in
Key West
Key West is an island in the Straits of Florida, at the southern end of the U.S. state of Florida. Together with all or parts of the separate islands of Dredgers Key, Fleming Key, Sunset Key, and the northern part of Stock Island, it con ...
,
Florida
Florida ( ; ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders the Gulf of Mexico to the west, Alabama to the northwest, Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia to the north, the Atlantic ...
, and
Tucson, Arizona
Tucson (; ; ) is a city in Pima County, Arizona, United States, and its county seat. It is the second-most populous city in Arizona, behind Phoenix, Arizona, Phoenix, with a population of 542,630 in the 2020 United States census. The Tucson ...
.
Williams was married for 34 years to
Rust Hills,
fiction editor for ''
Esquire
Esquire (, ; abbreviated Esq.) is usually a courtesy title. In the United Kingdom, ''esquire'' historically was a title of respect accorded to men of higher social rank, particularly members of the landed gentry above the rank of gentleman ...
'', until his death on August 12, 2008.
Work
Williams is the author of five novels. Her first novel, ''State of Grace'' (1973), was nominated for a
National Book Award for Fiction
The National Book Award for Fiction is one of five annual National Book Awards, which recognize outstanding literary work by United States citizens. Since 1987, the awards have been administered and presented by the National Book Foundation, bu ...
, and her fourth novel, ''The Quick and the Dead'' (2002), was a finalist for the
Pulitzer Prize for Fiction
The Pulitzer Prize for Fiction is one of the seven American Pulitzer Prizes that are annually awarded for Letters, Drama, and Music. It recognizes distinguished fiction by an American author, preferably dealing with American life, published during ...
. Her first collection of
short stories
A short story is a piece of prose fiction. It can typically be read in a single sitting and focuses on a self-contained incident or series of linked incidents, with the intent of evoking a single effect or mood. The short story is one of the old ...
, ''Taking Care'', was published in 1982. A second collection, ''Escapes'', followed in 1990. A 2001
essay
An essay ( ) is, generally, a piece of writing that gives the author's own argument, but the definition is vague, overlapping with those of a Letter (message), letter, a term paper, paper, an article (publishing), article, a pamphlet, and a s ...
collection, ''Ill Nature: Rants and Reflections on Humanity and Other Animals'', was a finalist for the
National Book Critics Circle Award for Criticism. ''Honored Guest,'' a collection of short stories, was published in 2004. A 30th anniversary reprint of ''The Changeling'' was issued in 2008 with an introduction by the American novelist
Rick Moody
Hiram Frederick Moody III (born October 18, 1961) is an American novelist and short story writer best known for the 1994 novel '' The Ice Storm'', a chronicle of the dissolution of two suburban Connecticut families over Thanksgiving weekend in 1 ...
. The book was also republished in 2018 to celebrate 40 years from its original publication. Her most recent novel, ''Harrow'', was published in September 2021.
Williams's stories and essays are frequently anthologized, and she has received many awards and honors, including the Harold and Mildred Strauss Living Award from the
American Academy of Arts and Letters
The American Academy of Arts and Letters is a 300-member honor society whose goal is to "foster, assist, and sustain excellence" in American literature, Music of the United States, music, and Visual art of the United States, art. Its fixed number ...
and the
Rea Award for the Short Story
The Rea Award for the Short Story is an annual award given to a living United States, American or Canada, Canadian author chosen for unusually significant contributions to short story fiction.
The Award
The Rea Award is named after Michael M. Rea ...
. In 2008, she was elected as a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In 2021, she received the Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction.
Williams's fiction often portrays life as a downward spiral, addressing various forms of failure in the USA from spiritual, ecological, and economic perspectives. Her characters, generally from the
middle class
The middle class refers to a class of people in the middle of a social hierarchy, often defined by occupation, income, education, or social status. The term has historically been associated with modernity, capitalism and political debate. C ...
, frequently fall from it, at times in bizarre fashion, in a form of cultural dispossession. Williams's adult characters are usually divorced, her children are abandoned, and their lives are consumed with fear, often irrational, such as the little girl in the story "The Excursion", who is terrified that birds will fly out of her toilet bowl. The critic Rosellen Brown has characterized the figures in Williams's work as seeming to be "born spiritually on the lam, living their clammy lives in a watery, vegetation-laden, untended-feeling place ... in ineffective shade."
Critics have also said her work has elements of both
minimalism
In visual arts, music, and other media, minimalism is an art movement that began in the post-war era in western art. The movement is often interpreted as a reaction to abstract expressionism and modernism; it anticipated contemporary post-mi ...
and the
Gothic.
In an introductory note in 1995's edition of ''Best American Short Stories'', Williams wrote: "All art is about nothingness: our apprehension of it, our fear of it, its approach."
Williams is especially noted for her writing on the environment. In addition to her work ''Ill Nature'', she is the author of a guidebook to the
Florida Keys
The Florida Keys are a coral island, coral cay archipelago off the southern coast of Florida, forming the southernmost part of the continental United States. They begin at the southeastern coast of the Florida peninsula, about south of Miami a ...
, which
Condé Nast
Condé Nast () is a global mass media company founded in 1909 by Condé Nast (businessman), Condé Montrose Nast (1873–1942) and owned by Advance Publications. Its headquarters are located at One World Trade Center in the FiDi, Financial Dis ...
called "one of the best guidebooks ever written" and "a magnificent, tragicomic guide."
Bibliography
Novels
* ''State of Grace'' (1973)
* ''The Changeling'' (1978)
*''
Breaking and Entering
Burglary, also called breaking and entering (B&E) or housebreaking, is a property crime involving the illegal entry into a building or other area without permission, typically with the intention of committing a further criminal offence. Usually ...
'' (1988)
*''The Quick and the Dead'' (2000)
* ''
Harrow'' (2021)
Short fiction
;Collections
* ''Taking Care'' (1982)
* ''Escapes'' (1990)
* ''Honored Guest'' (2004)
* ''The Visiting Privilege: New and Collected Stories'' (2015)
* ''99 Stories of God'' (2016)
* ''Concerning the Future of Souls'' (2024)
;
Nonfiction
* ''Ill Nature: Rants and Reflections on Humanity and Other Animals'' (essays) (2001)
* ''The Florida Keys: A History & Guide'', illustrated by Robert Carawan (Tenth Edition) (2003)
;
Notes
References
* ''The Writer's Almanac: Saturday, 11 February 2006'' by Garrison Keillor. ''The Writer's Almanac'' from American Public Media (February 2006). Retrieved on 2007 April 12.
*
Joy Williams, Winner 1999 ress release undated. ''www.ReaAward.org'' Retrieved on 2015 August 8.
* Bradley, Jane. Blanche H. Gelfant Editor. Lawrence Graver Assistant Editor
''The Columbia Companion to the Twentieth-Century American Short Story''.New York: Columbia University Press, 2001.
* Brown, Rosellen. �
Rosellen Brown Discovers Joy Williams” ''The Women's Review of Books'', vol. 16, no. 10/11, 1999, pp. 33–33.
* Szalay, Edina. �
BREAKING INTO THE HOUSE OF DEATH AND LOVE : THE GOTHIC AS SUBTEXT IN A MINIMALIST NOVEL(JOY WILLIAMS' ‘BREAKING & ENTERING’).” ''Hungarian Journal of English and American Studies (HJEAS''), vol. 4, no. 1/2, 1998, pp. 285–298. www.jstor.org/stable/41274011.
* Thompson, James R. "Carolyn Chute and Joy Williams: Alternate Voices of Rage and Curious Dismay," in ''Constructing the Eighties: Versions of an American Decade'', eds. Walter Grunzweig, Roberta Maierhofer, & Adolf Wimmer. Tübingen: Gunter Narr Verlag, 1992.
External links
profile (2015) "The Misanthropic Genius of Joy Williams"
The Art Of Fictioninterview (2014)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Williams, Joy
1944 births
Living people
20th-century American essayists
20th-century American novelists
20th-century American short story writers
20th-century American women writers
21st-century American essayists
21st-century American novelists
21st-century American short story writers
21st-century American women writers
American women academics
American women essayists
American women novelists
American women short story writers
Harper's Magazine people
Iowa Writers' Workshop alumni
Iowa Writers' Workshop faculty
Kirkus Prize winners
Members of the American Academy of Arts and Letters
Novelists from Arizona
Novelists from Florida
Novelists from Iowa
PEN/Malamud Award winners
People from Chelmsford, Massachusetts
University of Arizona faculty
University of Florida faculty
University of Iowa alumni
University of Iowa faculty