Published Short Fiction
2022
How to Apply Your MBA in Everyday Life
You dreamt you were the sole survivor of a virus designed by the octopus uprising, their leader offering to spare you if you can count his tentacles, of which in theory there are eight, but lord do they squirm.
The dramatic early career of charming and uptight consultant Monique, as she navigates race, gender, and work/life balance in corporate America, haunted by the question on every Millennial’s mind: What do I want?
Originally published in Black Warrior Review Issue 49.1
2018
The Sower: A Trailer
The time-lapse sunflowers have broken their choreography, each swiveling to its own logic, looking like nothing so much as satellite dishes scanning anxiously for a signal.
When they sync again, they are facing something in the sky other than the sun.
Simultaneously a commentary and a fresh take on a familiar sub-genre, this fragmented eco-horror will have you overthinking every sneeze, questioning every potted plant.
Originally published in FIYAH Issue 6: Big Mama Nature
Reviewed by Charles Payseur at The Book Smugglers and by A.C. Wise at Apex Magazine
2018
Inner Space
The house stands in profile, exposing the innocent, familiar brick of its western face, coils of vapor hanging lazily about the shingles like amorphous bangs, twirled gently in fingers of breeze, so coy, so openly showing him absolutely nothing…
A father struggles to show up for family through his grief-induced solipsism, the foundations of his career in psychology thrown into question by the weight of personal experience
Originally published in Fireside Magazine alongside Sarah Gailey’s award-winning “STET” (!) and Taimur Ahmad’s beautiful “Green Tunnels”
Reviewed by Charles Payseur at Quick Sip
2015
Oxygen Holocaust
Chemoautotrophy is all good and well, but these tropical bacteria have moved on from stinking sulfur and tangy ferrous iron. Now they eat sunlight, and it is simply divine.
A parable of climate and geological change, from the perspective of ancient bacteria
Originally published in The Nassau Weekly
2015
The First Sentence
You learned all this too early, before object permanence had fully set in.
Consciousness coming on line.
Immediate suffering.
You.
Originally published in The Nassau Weekly
Pipeline Short Fiction
Completed, available for publication
Four Alien Analogues of 1 Corinthians 13
Love is patient. Love is slime.
A self-explanatory title and a story that delivers.
Short story, 2,800 words; science fiction, experimental
Poly-morphic Monogamy
Reggie called about the problem. But Felicity is half the problem. Which is to say that half of Felicity is the whole problem—the male half of Felicity. The half that Reggie didn’t know about until last week.
A couples therapist who specializes in cross-species relationships.
And a couple who stretches the definition of … two.
Short story, 3,500 words; science fiction, Golden Age vibes with a twist
Tilted Toward the Light
She shivers at noon.
Jack and Amber homestead in Alaska to escape the identities and expectations society forced on them. What they’ve unknowingly brought along will mix poorly with the ice and snow.
Novelette, 12,000 words; dark historical slipstream
The Dashboard of Your Semi-autonomous 2032 Mercedes-Benz
Trip’s hunched posture and unchanging stare out the window are abnormal. The silence in the cabin is abnormal.
Their self-driving car has had a front-row seat to the Ehrenfelds’ drama. On this particular trip, can it save them from themselves?
Short story, 2,800 words; near-future literary, experimental
Praise
Praise for “Four Alien Analogues of 1 Corinthians 13”
“Bold, refreshing, and a delight to read.”
- Dream Foundry Contest judges, Sarah Gailey & L.D. Lewis
“I love (ha) the language in this story so much, and the abstraction worked incredibly well.”
- Annalee Newitz
“Extremely creative, as usual.”
- Kerstin Hall
“Wow, this is a thrilling experiment that kept me guessing … I’m going to be thinking about this quartet of stories for a long time.”
- Charlie Jane Anders
Praise for “How to Apply Your MBA in Everyday Life”
“The energy behind the story was strong and impressive.”
- Alyssa Songsiridej, managing editor at Electric Literature (personalized rejection)
“This piece stood out to us among a large number of submissions.”
- Megan Cummins, managing editor at A Public Space (personalized rejection)
“I can’t wait to share it with some of my post-MBA peers.”
- Ruthie Chen, Yale MBA and Ex-McKinsey consultant
Praise for “The Sower: A Trailer”
“A series of haunting and effective images building to form a terrifying whole… Williams offers up a cosmic and unrelenting force, one that is frightening, but at the same time, understandable.”
- A.C. Wise, “Words for Thought” column in Apex Magazine
“A visceral sense of poetic justice”
- Charles Payseur, “X Marks the Story” column at The Book Smugglers
“We love the formatting and the framing—the ‘eerie prophetic images seen in a well and recreated on Vimeo with high production values’ thing is beautiful—and the specific horror images were great.”
- Vajra Chandrasekera and Strange Horizons fiction editors (personalized rejection)
“Really fun. Great stuff.”
- Alan Janney, author of The Outlaw series
Praise for “Tilted Toward the Light”
“The language is fantastic, the characters fully realized, the setting unique, the plot engaging, the spec element timed well and perfectly foreshadowed, and the ideas cogent and interesting.”
- Taimur Ahmad, author of “Tweak”
“Tilted Toward the light is fantastic … That ending tho. I’m still thinking about it.”
- Alan Janney, author of The Outlaw series