Zoe Williams

Last updated

Zoe Williams
Born
Zoe Abigail Williams

(1973-08-07) 7 August 1973 (age 51) [1]
Hounslow, London
Education Lincoln College, Oxford (BA)
Occupation(s) Journalist, columnist, author
Employer The Guardian
Children2

Zoe Abigail Williams [2] (born 7 August 1973) [3] is a Welsh [4] columnist, journalist, and author.

Contents

Early life

Zoe Abigail Williams was born on 7 August 1973 in Hounslow, London. Williams was educated at the independent Godolphin and Latymer School for girls in London and read modern history at Lincoln College, Oxford. [5] Her father, Mark Williams, was a forensic psychologist; [6] he worked at Wandsworth Prison in London. [7] Her mother was a set designer for the BBC. [8] [ failed verification ] Her parents separated in 1976 and divorced 20 years later. [9] Williams has an older sister [10] and half- and step-siblings from her father's marital and extramarital [10] relationships. Williams said her father was a petty criminal because he committed insurance fraud. [6] [11]

Writing

Williams is a lifestyle, wellness and political journalist for The Guardian , with her Fitness in your 40s, family and political columns. Her work has also appeared in other publications, including the New Statesman , The Spectator , Now, [12] the London Cycling Campaign's magazine London Cyclist, and The Times Literary Supplement . [13] She is also a columnist for the London Evening Standard , for which she was a diarist writing about being a single woman in London. She reviewed restaurants for The Sunday Telegraph magazine. [14]

In May 2011, Williams wrote about fare dodging when in her 30s while travelling on London buses. She wrote: "I actually had a lot of affection for bendy buses, mainly because evading your fare was so easy that to pay was almost missing the point. We used to call it freebussing." [15] [16]

Political

In 2014, Williams defended the social policy legacy of former Labour prime minister Tony Blair and denounced those calling him a war criminal. [17] Following the death of Fidel Castro, Williams condemned his rule in Cuba, while imploring her readers to ignore his policies. [18] In August 2015, Williams endorsed Jeremy Corbyn's campaign in the Labour Party leadership election. She wrote in The Guardian: "The point is, Corbyn doesn't have to be right about everything; he doesn't have to be certain, and fully costed about everything; he doesn't even have to be responsive and listening to everything. This political moment is about breaking open the doors and letting the 21st century in." [19]

Feminism

Williams writes about her personal life from a feminist perspective, such as her marriages, [20] motherhood, and her abortion. [21] [22]

She wrote Bring It On, Baby: How to have a dudelike pregnancy, a 2010 book of advice for mothers-to-be, which was republished in 2012 as What Not to Expect When You're Expecting. [14]

Awards

Williams was longlisted for the Orwell Prize in 2012, [23] [24] and was named Columnist of the Year 2010 at the WorkWorld Media Awards. [25]

Broadcasting

Williams has appeared as a guest on television. Clive James praised her appearance in documentary Teenage Kicks: the Search for Sophistication: "The brilliant journalist Zoe Williams did a short piece to camera that was almost an aria." [26] She has presented a radio documentary, Inside the Academy School Revolution, which Miranda Sawyer found one-sided and "tame", [27] and hosted BBC Radio 4's What The Papers Say . She has been a panellist on the BBC's Any Questions [28] and Question Time . [29]

Criticism

In February 2020, Williams was criticised online and in Nation.Cymru for her comments about the Welsh language. Her article on exercise criticised a particular Canadian fitness regime as "hard and existentially pointless", continuing: "all that energy spent, no distance covered: it's like eating cottage cheese or learning Welsh." [30] [4] Williams had previously praised the language on Twitter for giving Welsh speakers "a more international outlook". [4] [31]

In 2020, Kent Live reported criticism of Williams following an altercation that resulted in Williams being told to leave a Wetherspoons pub in Ramsgate, on the basis that she had broken the COVID-19 lockdown rules then in force. [32] Williams had written about the incident in The Guardian. [33]

Personal life

Williams lives in South London with her second husband, Will Higham, and his daughter from another marriage, as well as her son, Thurston, [34] and daughter, Harper, [35] who were fathered by her first husband before she married him. [36] Williams married the father, a geologist, [37] of her son and daughter [38] in 2013, after ten years together, and wrote about the wedding from a feminist perspective in her column for The Guardian. [39] [40] In 2018, after a divorce, Williams married for the second time. [36]

Williams became a trustee of the Butler Trust [41] —which was established to recognise the achievements of prison service staff—in November 2013. [2]

She is a patron of Humanists UK. [42]

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References

  1. ↑ Williams, Zoe (7 August 2023). "I am 50 today – and I no longer care what anyone thinks about my age". The Guardian.
  2. 1 2 "Zoe Abigail WILLIAMS - Personal Appointments (free information from Companies House)". find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk.
  3. ↑ Williams, Zoe (7 August 2023). "I am 50 today – and I no longer care what anyone thinks about my age". The Guardian. ISSN   0261-3077 . Retrieved 6 February 2024.
  4. 1 2 3 "Guardian criticised after suggesting Welsh language is pointless". Nation.Cymru. 2 February 2020. Retrieved 30 April 2020.
  5. ↑ Marrin, Minette (17 May 2009). "When today's left speaks it is right-wing bigotry we hear". The Sunday Times. Archived from the original on 17 May 2009. Retrieved 30 April 2020– via Times Online.
  6. 1 2 "Boris Johnson's county court judgment actually made me feel sorry for him | Zoe Williams". The Guardian. 14 May 2021.
  7. ↑ Williams, Zoe (8 August 2024). "Britain's jails are in terrible crisis, but prison can work. I know, I've seen it". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 15 August 2024.
  8. ↑ "Zoe Williams decides to call in the dog therapist". The Guardian. 14 October 2005.
  9. ↑ Williams, Zoe (1 June 2007). "Talking heads". Marie Claire. Archived from the original on 1 April 2012. Retrieved 30 April 2020.
  10. 1 2 "Zoe Williams on Ian McEwan's discovery of a long-lost brother". The Guardian. 18 January 2007.
  11. ↑ "Was my grandfather really Britain's top communist? | Zoe Williams". The Guardian. 20 June 2018.
  12. ↑ "Now price cut and celeb boost follows rival launch". Press Gazette. 9 October 2002. Archived from the original on 24 June 2013.
  13. ↑ "All-Out Wars," TLS (20 December 2019), p. 26.
  14. 1 2 "Zoe Williams". Goldsmiths, University of London. Retrieved 16 May 2021.
  15. ↑ Maguire, Kevin (27 October 2011). "Champagne or sham pain". New Statesman. Retrieved 30 April 2020.
  16. ↑ Williams, Zoe (27 May 2011). "Boris Johnson and the Routemaster: soft edges and cheerful demeanour". The Guardian. Retrieved 30 April 2020.
  17. ↑ Zoe Williams (8 April 2014). "Stop calling Tony Blair a war criminal. The left should be proud of his record". The Guardian. Retrieved 30 April 2020.
  18. ↑ Williams, Zoe (27 November 2016). "Forget Fidel Castro's policies. What matters is that he was a dictator". The Guardian . Retrieved 25 February 2017.
  19. ↑ Williams, Zoe (16 August 2015). "Corbynomics must smash this cosy consensus on debt". The Guardian. Retrieved 30 April 2020.
  20. ↑ "Why I married late: a feminist's guide". The Guardian. 24 August 2013.
  21. ↑ "Zoe Williams: Is the right to abortion under threat?". The Guardian. 27 October 2006.
  22. ↑ "Zoe Williams: I have. I'm not ashamed". The Guardian. 4 July 2006.
  23. ↑ "Zoe Williams". Orwell Prize. Orwell Foundation. Retrieved 30 April 2020.
  24. ↑ "Orwell prize: four Guardian journalists nominated". The Guardian. 31 March 2012. Retrieved 30 April 2020.
  25. ↑ "David Cohen named reporter of the year at WorkWorld Media Awards". Press Gazette. 19 January 2011. Retrieved 30 April 2020.
  26. ↑ James, Clive (7 October 2011). "Clive James on... Grand Designs and Dragons' Den". The Telegraph. Telegraph Media Group. Retrieved 30 April 2020.(subscription required)
  27. ↑ Sawyer, Miranda (9 December 2012). "Rewind radio: The Kitchen Cabinet; The Budget; Inside the Academy School Revolution; Breakfast; The Atkinson People – review". The Observer. Retrieved 30 April 2020– via The Guardian.
  28. ↑ "BBC Radio 4 - Any Questions? and Any Answers?, AQ: Lord Heseltine, Suzanne Evans, Tristram Hunt MP, and Zoe Williams". BBC.
  29. ↑ "BBC One - Question Time, 03/03/2016". BBC.
  30. ↑ Fit in my 40s: Canada's Air Force fitness drills are a retro, noisy tonic, The Guardian , 1 February 2020
  31. ↑ @zoesqwilliams (8 February 2019). "Interesting factette: of actual Welsh speakers, only 16 percent voted Leave. There's a hypothesis that learning a l…" (Tweet) – via Twitter.
  32. ↑ James, John (2 November 2020). "'Gobsmacked' writer kicked out of Spoons for 'social distancing infractions'". KentLive. Retrieved 21 April 2021.
  33. ↑ Williams, Zoe (1 November 2020). "Think the coronavirus rules aren't being enforced? My Wetherspoon's run-in says otherwise". The Guardian.
  34. ↑ "Guardian staff test out the US trend of bringing baby to work". The Guardian. 8 April 2008.
  35. ↑ "Caesareans are not the posh option". The Guardian. 8 October 2009.
  36. 1 2 "I do, again: 'There is nothing as deadly serious as a second marriage'". The Guardian. 5 May 2018. Retrieved 1 March 2021.
  37. ↑ "Zoe Williams: 'I'd choose the school play over interviewing Barack Obama'". www.managementtoday.co.uk.
  38. ↑ "Live chat on parenting with Zoe Williams". The Guardian. 8 June 2010. Retrieved 30 April 2020.
  39. ↑ Zoe Williams (24 August 2013). "Why I married late: a feminist's guide". The Guardian. Retrieved 30 April 2020.
  40. ↑ Zoe Williams (11 April 2008). "Zoe Williams: My boyfriend is right". The Guardian. Retrieved 30 April 2020.
  41. ↑ "When prison works: inside New Hall, the women's prison where inmates are equals". The Guardian. 30 January 2015.
  42. ↑ "Zoe Williams". Humanists UK. Retrieved 10 December 2012.
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