Eley Williams
Poet, Short-story writer
About
In her fiction, Eley Williams enjoys the mischievous potential of language as something that can both reveal and obscure meaning. Themes of linguistic order and disorder inform many elements of her published work, with notions of lexicography, errata, failures to communicate and ‘nonsense literature’ all present in her novel The Liar’s Dictionary (2020) as well as short story collections Attrib. (2017) and Moderate to Poor, Occasionally Good (2024).
Eley’s stories and poems have been widely anthologised in books such as Modern Queer Poets and The Penguin Book of the Contemporary British Short Story, and her fiction is regularly commissioned by BBC Radio 4; this includes a recent ten-part short-story cycle titled Gambits about fictional chess players featuring the voices of Anton Lesser, Adrian Scarborough and Stephen Mangan. Alongside single-authored books, Eley relishes the chance to contribute text to interdisciplinary projects: collaborations include co-writing and performing with Flemish writers Paul Demets and Peter Verhelst for the European Poetry Festival, libretto work with the composer Tom Wilson, and a pamphlet commissioned to accompany artist Emily Speed’s solo show Flatland at Tate Liverpool. Eley was named one of Granta’s Best of Young British Novelists in 2023; she also received a James Tait Black Memorial prize for fiction, and a Betty Trask award from the Society of Authors.
Eley lives in Oxfordshire with the writer Nell Stevens with whom she also infrequently collaborates (creatively and otherwise), and current writing research centres on follies, chess, and concepts related to ‘falling down the rabbit hole’.