Sheila J. Williams is the award-winning author of four books: Dancing on the Edge of the Roof, The Shade of My Own Tree, On the Right Side of a Dream, and Girls Most Likely. In addition to working as a full-time writer, she also serves as an instructor for the UCLA Extension Writers’ Program, teaching courses in fiction and novel writing.

Williams was born in Columbus, Ohio. She attended Ohio Wesleyan University and received her degree from the University of Louisville. After spending several years working for big-time corporations and law firms, Williams settled down to write, completing her first novel on a manual Smith-Corona typewriter located on her kitchen table. In 2001, she succeeded in landing her first publishing contract. Ever since then, Williams has won numerous honors and awards for her writing, including the GoOnGirl New Author of the Year Award. Her books have garnered rave reviews from major magazines like People and Publishers Weekly.

GGG: What inspired you to begin a career in writing? What life experiences or what changes in your life encouraged you to become a full-time writer?

Williams: Authors are writers. Writers are storytellers. I was always a storyteller, from the time I was a child. I made up stories and told them with pictures (badly drawn pictures). Then, when I learned how to write, I added the words. From there, I moved to poetry, short stories, research papers, and novels. Storytelling was a tradition in my family.

When I was a child, if I behaved myself at dinner, I was allowed to stay up and listen to my parents, grandparents, and great grandparents talk and discuss the issues of the day along with what was going on down the street! My great grandfather, Bill Gardner, was an amazing man with a James Earl Jones voice. The stories that he told were marvelous. Stories are great tools, and they nourish us. They entertain, enlighten, enrage, and educate us. What could be better than that? Okay, chocolate is better, but you get the idea.

GGG: What do you like to write about? What themes, issues, and topics does your work generally address?

Williams: I like to write about average people, not divas, kings, or mythic heroes. The every-man or woman is a hero to me, just by getting up in the morning and going to work. I begin each story with a character and a basic idea and move into the story from there. The themes are the stuff of life: friendship, loss, change, fear, and restoration. Dancing on the Edge of the Roof follows Juanita Louis, a nursing assistant who leaves her home in the Midwest and travels to Montana to begin a new life and a new career. The novel’s theme is risk-taking and pursuing one’s dream.

My fourth novel, Girls Most Likely, is a chronicle of the friendship of four women from age ten through their thirtieth high school reunion. It deals with everything that women’s lives include: marriage, pregnancy, career, betrayal, disappointment, and satisfaction. The flipside is The Shade of My Own Tree, the title taken from a poem written by a Buddhist nun. Opal Sullivan leaves an abusive marriage and moves out on her own to restore her life as well as the Victorian home that she’s living in. A so-called “ordinary” life is a fertile territory of ideas.

GGG: To what extent does your work reflect your own life? Do you draw inspiration and content from life experiences?

Williams: Since I don’t want to bore my readers, I don’t write about my own life! But inspiration? It comes from everywhere. I am continually inspired by people and events, but sometimes not in the ways that you would think. I was concerned that my second novel (which addressed domestic violence) would interest no one. But at nearly every book event that I’ve done since the publication of that novel (2003), someone will talk with me about it. Many of these readers are survivors or children, parents, siblings, or friends of women who’ve endured abuse. I’m always humbled by the e-mails from readers who tell me that they’ve helped a family member or friend in trouble by giving them a copy of The Shade of My Own Tree. I am inspired every day by the achievements of “normal” people – they are my heroes.

GGG: On your website, you describe Girls Most Likely as “an emotional, uplifting, often hilarious glimpse into the lives of today’s ever-changing African American women…” What do you mean by the ever-changing African American woman?

Williams: I didn’t write that tagline! It sounds good, though! Girls Most Likely is an homage to friendship and especially to the girls that I grew up with. There is nothing like having friends who remember what you were like in fourth grade. As for “ever-changing”, the only constant in life is change. I try to infuse my work with characters who move away from one situation and jump outside of their comfort zone into a new universe. [In terms of] Dancing on the Edge of the Roof, you might fall off, and you’ll probably get rained on, but if you can stay up there, there’s a good chance that you’ll see the stars.

GGG: What role does multiculturalism and womanhood play in your writing?

Williams: Good question, if only because I’m not sure how to answer it. I grew up in this country as a woman of African American descent. That’s the lens that I was given. In many ways, being a woman provides nourishment for the stories that I write. But I’ve had to walk in the shoes of others as well – storytellers use many voices – and I try to show the dignity and value of all of my characters from an octogenarian femme fatale to a nearly seven-foot-tall Montana state trooper nicknamed “Mountain” to an ordinary bus-riding nurse’s assistant named Juanita who decides that it’s time to blaze a new trail. I am a shape-shifter in my work, using many faces, voices, and points of view.

GGG: What advice would you give to fledgling writers who are unsure about how to launch their careers?

Williams: Read widely and adventurously. The works of others will inspire and nourish your work. Second, write. Write in a journal, write on a paper towel, use a keyboard or a pencil, but write. Use the net to find agents, writing conferences, courses, book signings, and literary retreats. They’re out there, and the more information you have, the better off you’ll be. Lastly, you must be tenacious. You’ll be rejected many times, accepted few times. Have a thick skin, and keep at it. Never, never, never, never give up. I think that was a quote from Churchill, and he may have had one or two more never’s in the phrase!

GGG: In addition to writing, you also work as an instructor for the UCLA Extension Writers’ Program. How does teaching writing to students supplement your own writing endeavors?

Williams: Teaching is sharing. I make my insights available to others and hope that they are useful and that I can encourage them to move their projects forward. Often, my job as an instructor is to help the writer find a path. I read over the work and say, “Try it this way.” I’ve had students from all over the country and the world, including a serviceman in Iraq. Teaching reminds me that it’s not enough to keep your insights to yourself – share them. And you’ll get something back.

GGG: Where are your books currently being sold?

Williams: I never know! I’ve gotten e-mails from readers in Canada and Australia! They’re available online from all the usual places, and hopefully at some of the indie bookstores around the country. If you don’t see my books on the shelves, ask your bookseller to order them.

No related posts.

Tags: Person of the Week