Writer

Guerilla memoirist, essay writer and travel journalist, Allison K Williams has written about race, culture and comedy for National Public Radio, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, The New York Times, The Christian Science Monitor, McSweeney's Internet Tendency and Travelers' Tales.

Her fiction has appeared in Crossed Genres, Smokelong Quarterly and Deep South; essays in Kenyon Review Online, Prairie Schooner, The Drum and Brevity. Her humor writing was a Mark Twain Award winner; she has been twice nominated for a Pushcart Prize. As a storyteller, Allison has appeared onstage at London's Theatre Royal and Rich Mix, India's Filocafe, and is a two-time winner of The Moth StorySLAM.

She has been a Peter Taylor Fellow at the Kenyon Writers Workshop with Dinty W. Moore; a three-time Associate Artist at Atlantic Center for the Arts with Rick Moody, David Shields, and Dani Shapiro; and has received grants from the Michigan Council for Arts and Cultural Affairs and the Arts Council of Greater Kalamazoo.

Allison is the Social Media Editor at Brevity, and the host of the Brevity Podcast.

Home base is currently Dubai, where "The Pork Shop" is a separate, dimly-lit room at the back of the supermarket. It's like buying meat porn.

Editor

As The Unkind Editor, I can help you get to one of two destinations:

A tight, well-written and compelling manuscript, an excellent query letter, and a better-than-average shot at agent representation and traditional publication;

Or

An impeccably proofread, beautiful-to-look-at, well-written book you will be proud to self-publish and share with friends and strangers alike.

I provide developmental editing, line editing, manuscript evaluations and writer coaching. After a sample edit of your writing and a preliminary consultation to determine your goals, we'll choose which type(s) of editing will best help your work. If you're finalizing a manuscript, I can coordinate beta readers and help you determine what feedback is most useful and how to implement it, as well as helping fine-tune your query and begin the query process.

For essayists and humor writers, we'll work together to identify where your work fits and craft pieces with specific publications in mind.


Please note: I am not accepting new clients at this time. Thank you for your visit; my Seven Drafts webinar is available if you resonate with my style and want to apply my editing principles to your work.

After six previous rejections, McSweeneys is taking the Haggadah!!!!! I’m beyond thrilled! It sounds cliche but I couldn’t have done this without your help over these last few months. Truly. Your impact on my writing has been “YUUUGE!”
~Terry Heyman, essayist and comedy writer

...hiring you to edit my work is one of the best things I have ever done for my writing. Your perspective is fantastic. You “get” my work and what I am trying to say. I love your honest, blunt and realistic delivery. Every time I work through your edits, comments and suggestions I feel…relief. The clarity this edit has given me is powerful.
~E.G., memoirist

OMG I LOVE BEING EDITED!!!! ...once I understood the overall trajectory it was like, oh! I have a puzzle now! Without an editor I'm putting it together knowing it's a picture of a cat but I don't have a visual on the end product. WITH AN EDITOR I HAVE THE BOX COVER!!!!
~Erin Clark, essayist

To my editor, thank you, thank you, thank you. There are editors and then there is The Unkind Editor. Your insight and expertise not only made my book stronger, but also made me a better writer.

~A. K. Mills, novelist
More information

Rates and applying to work with The Unkind Editor

Work


I wield a lot of pens. I'm an essayist and travel writer, a playwright, and working on a Young Adult novel. Things I wrote, stories for listening and books you can buy are linked below.

Webinars and tutorials
Blogs about writing, social media and chopping wood at Brevity.
The Brevity Podcast (also on iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever you subscribe to podcasts)

Buddha Nature
Buddha Nature

Kenyon Review

Read

Get Published In Literary Magazines
Get Published In Literary Magazines

buy/read sample at Amazon

Read

Can You Teach Me How To Dance Real Slow?
Can You Teach Me How To Dance Real Slow?

Brevity

Read

Home For the Holidays, Or Not
Home For the Holidays, Or Not

New York Times

Read

Love at No Sight
Love at No Sight

Snap Judgment

Listen

I Eat Camping Fuel
I Eat Camping Fuel

interview at McSweeney's

Read

Sweet Time
Sweet Time

Prairie Schooner

Read

Sisterhood of Saris
Sisterhood of Saris

Christian Science Monitor

Read

Shame
Shame

CBC's Love Me

Listen

How To Attend an Indian Funeral
How To Attend an Indian Funeral

Hippocampus

Read

Snake
Snake

The Drum Audio Lit

Listen

Snake
Snake

Deep South

Read

Kalighat
Kalighat

Originally told live at The Moth, transcribed at Story Club

Read

 Sunyata
Sunyata

Smokelong Quarterly

Read

Famous
Famous

Redux

Read

Courtesies
Courtesies

Travelers' Tales: Prague available at Amazon

Read

Reality
Reality

published at Magic Magazine, original blog here

Read

Courtesies
Courtesies

The Drum Audio Lit

Listen

Write About Indians
Write About Indians

Drunken Boat

ReadListen

Dubai: Beyond the Hype
Dubai: Beyond the Hype

Expat Connect

Read

The Wolf
The Wolf

fiction at Crossed Genres

Read

Easy Rider
Easy Rider

Expat Connect

Read

How To Attend an Indian Funeral
How To Attend an Indian Funeral

Anthologized in Selected Memories: Five Years of Hippocampus Magazine

Read

Make Professional Editing Work for You
Make Professional Editing Work for You

at The Writers Bloc

Read

Running Away from the Circus
Running Away from the Circus

at The Writers Bloc

Read

The Joy of the OTHER Airport
The Joy of the OTHER Airport

Expat Connect

Read

Why So Coy, Journals? A Plea For Payment Transparency
Why So Coy, Journals? A Plea For Payment Transparency

at The Review Review

Read

Joining the Circus
Joining the Circus

Dance Australia

Read

Are You Ready to Go Pro?
Are You Ready to Go Pro?

SassyPants Aerial

Read

Show Me Less Money
Show Me Less Money

Imaginaerial

Read

Postcards From Shakespeare
Postcards From Shakespeare

script at Theatrefolk

Read

Drop Dead, Juliet!
Drop Dead, Juliet!

script at Theatrefolk

Read

Hamlette
Hamlette

script at Theatrefolk

Read

Mmmbeth
Mmmbeth

script at Theatrefolk

Read

The Scarlet Heart
The Scarlet Heart

script at Theatrefolk

Read

Dead Men Don't Do Radio Plays
Dead Men Don't Do Radio Plays

script at Theatrefolk

Read

Dead Men Don't Jaywalk
Dead Men Don't Jaywalk

script at Theatrefolk

Read

Dead Men Don't Carry Handbags
Dead Men Don't Carry Handbags

script at Theatrefolk

Read

Everybody Comes to Tim's
Everybody Comes to Tim's

script at Youthplays

Read

Speaker


Allison K Williams is a lively, informative speaker with great stage presence, fantastic delivery, and solid, well-researched talks packed full of information your audience can use right now. She's presented at conferences, workshops and institutions including Hippocamp Creative Nonfiction Conference, Writers Wing, Aquinas College and the University of South Florida.

Topics include:

Self-Edit Like a Pro (includes live editing of participant pages)
Write Better With Social Media
Get Published in Literary Magazines
Building Genuine, Useful Author Platform
Compelling Storytelling
Seven Drafts to a Novel That Works
How to Write a Memoir

and a variety of writing craft talks and intensive workshops.

Allison is also available to moderate panels and lead workshops and retreats.

Download a PDF with session descriptions and presentation history (Full Size 9MB) (Compressed 787KB).




Audience feedback:

...I loved your presentation. It was jam packed with useful information — more so than most workshops I’ve attended at other conferences.

~Laura Laing

Your energy and expertise are inspiring. Thanks for ripping apart my paragraph. Ha! Seriously, I learned a lot. That's the point of a conference. You rock.
~Terri Kiral

I have received the best take-home tools from your two workshops. Tonight, while waiting in line for Mary Karr to sign my book, I pulled out an essay I thought I had taken as far as I could revision-wise, and it was like I was looking at it with new eyes, and I marked it all up, and it is a better read for it.
~Jess Chuckalovcak

...Appreciate many things about your presence and energy. Important to hear the valuable information you have to share. You believe in what you have to teach and give it your all. FABULOUS!
~Elizabeth L. Hainstock

Find out about booking Allison for your event.



Get in touch

I'd love to hear from you

Tell me what you're looking for.

allison@idowords.net