THE AUTHOR:
Joy Williams has written five novels, five collections of short stories, including the micro-fictions of 99 Stories of God and two works of non-fiction. She has received the Strauss Living Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Hadada Award from The Paris Review, and in 2021 the Kirkus Prize for Fiction. She also received the Fiction Award from the Library of Congress. She was elected to the Academy in 2008.
THE INTERVIEWER:
Oscar Villalon is the managing editor at ZYZZYVA, which won a 2022 Whiting Literary Magazine Prize. His writing has been published in Stranger’s Guide, Freeman’s, The Believer, Literary Hub, and other publications. A former book editor at the San Francisco Chronicle, he has served three times on the fiction jury (once as chair) for the Pulitzer Prize, and was most recently the chair of the nonfiction judging committee for the National Book Awards. He lives with his family in San Francisco.