External
- Eley Williams on Goodreads
- Eley Williams The Books of My Life at The Guardian
- Profile at C&W
- Profile at Profession Writing Academy
- Profile at Penguin Random House
- Profile at Granta
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Eley Williams | |
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| Occupation | Writer |
| Language | English |
| Nationality | British |
| Alma mater | Selwyn College, Cambridge |
| Notable awards | James Tait Black Memorial Prize (2017) Republic of Consciousness Prize (2018) Betty Trask Award (2021) |
| Spouse | Nell Stevens |
Eleanor Williams FRSL is a British writer. [1] Her debut collection of prose, Attrib. and Other Stories (Influx Press, 2017), was awarded the 2018 Republic of Consciousness Prize [2] and the 2017 James Tait Black Memorial Prize. [3] Her writing has also been anthologised in The Penguin Book of the Contemporary British Short Story (Penguin Classics, 2018), [4] Liberating the Canon (Dostoevsky Wannabe, 2018) [5] and Not Here: A Queer Anthology of Loneliness (Pilot Press, 2017). [6]
Williams is an alumna of the MacDowell Workshop and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. [7] She taught at Royal Holloway, University of London, [8] and supervises Jungftak, a journal for contemporary prose poetry. [9]
Her first novel, The Liar's Dictionary, was published in 2020, described in The Guardian as a "virtuoso performance full of charm... a glorious novel – a perfectly crafted investigation of our ability to define words and their power to define us." [10] Stuart Kelly in a review in The Spectator wrote of the book: "It deals with love as something which cannot be put into words, and dare not speak its name (done neither stridently nor sentimentally). It is, in short, a delight." [11]
Williams's stories "Moderate to Poor, Occasionally Good" (2018) and "Moonlighting" (2019) have been broadcast on BBC Radio 4 under the Short Works strand, and her story "Scrimshaw" was a finalist for the 2020 BBC National Short Story Award. [12] A 10-part radio series Gambits, based around the theme of chess, was broadcast on Radio 4 beginning in November 2021. [13]
Williams' given name is Eleanor; the unusual spelling of Eley came from school. She grew up with two sisters. [14] Williams graduated from Selwyn College, Cambridge. She lives in West Oxfordshire with her wife Nell Stevens. [15]
In 2017, Williams received the Society of Authors's Writing Grant, and in 2018, she received a MacDowell Fellowship and Fellowship of Royal Society of Literature. [8]
In 2023, Williams was named on the Granta Best of Young British Novelists list, compiled every 10 years since 1983, identifying the 20 most significant British novelists aged under 40. [16] [17]
| Year | Title | Award | Result | Ref. | |
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| 2005 | "Gravity" | Christopher Tower Poetry Prize | — | Won | [18] |
| 2017 | Attrib. and Other Stories | James Tait Black Memorial Prize | — | Won | [3] [19] |
| 2018 | Dylan Thomas Prize | — | Longlisted | [20] | |
| Republic of Consciousness Prize | — | Won | [2] [21] | ||
| 2020 | "Scrimshaw" | BBC National Short Story Award | — | Shortlisted | [12] [22] |
| 2021 | The Liar's Dictionary | Betty Trask Prize and Awards | Betty Trask Award | Won | [23] |
| Desmond Elliott Prize | — | Shortlisted | [24] | ||
| 2025 | Moderate to Poor, Occasionally Good | Dylan Thomas Prize | — | Pending | [25] |
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