Episode 107. Merrie Joy Williams uncovers the beauty of her writing process and the importance of embracing multiple experiences that influence storytelling.

Merrie Joy Williams is a poet, novelist, editor, and writing tutor, with an MA in Creative Writing from the Manchester Writing School. She was shortlisted for the 2020 Bridport Poetry Prize, and is a winner of The Poetry Archive’s ‘Wordview 2020’, featured permanently on their website. She is also the recipient of a London Writers Award, and Arts Council England awards for both poetry and fiction. 

 

She is an Obsidian Fellow, a Hawthornden Fellow and was a poet-in-residence with Manchester Poetry Library, where she first explored being fostered as a baby. Much of her work currently explores how the places where we come from influence our lives; including Manchester, a commission by Historic England rresearching Woolwich High Street, and parental roots in Jamaica – a place she hasn’t been to since a child.

 

Her debut collection is ‘Open Windows’ (Waterloo Press, 2019). Magma has described the collection as 'assured, driven by sonorous language and a strong autobiographical narrative’.

merriejoywilliams.com