John Edward Williams

John Edward Williams (1922 - 1994) was a writer best known for his novels "Stoner" and "Augustus".

Born on August 29, 1922, in Clarksville, Texas, near the Red River east of Paris, Texas and brought up in Texas. After holding various positions with newspapers and radio stations in the Southwest, Williams enlisted in the USAF early in 1942, spending two and a half years as a sergeant in India and Burma. Several years after the war, Williams enrolled in the University of Denver, where he received his B.A. in 1949 and an M.A. in 1950. During this period, his first novel, "Nothing But the Night", was published (1948), and his first volume of poems, "The Broken Landscape", appeared the following year. In the fall of 1950, Williams went to the University of Missouri, where he taught and received a Ph.D. in 1954. In the fall of 1955, Williams took over the directorship of the creative writing program at the University of Denver. Williams's second novel, "Butcher's Crossing", was published by Macmillan in 1960, followed by "English Renaissance Poetry", an anthology published in 1963 by Doubleday which he edited and for which he wrote the introduction. His second book of poems, "The Necessary Lie", appeared in 1965 and was published by Verb Publications. In 1965 he became editor of University of Denver Quarterly (later Denver Quarterly) until 1970. In 1965, Williams's third novel, "Stoner", was published by Viking Press. It has been recently been re-issued by The New York Review of Books. His fourth novel, "Augustus", was published by Viking Press in 1973 and won the prestigious National Book Award in 1973 [cite web
authorlink =
coauthors =
title = National Book Award Winners: Fiction/Hardback
work =
publisher = List of Bests
date =
url = http://www.listsofbests.com/list/79
accessdate = 2006-09-13 ] and remains in print.

After retiring from the University of Denver in 1986, Williams moved with his wife, Nancy, to Fayetteville, Arkansas, where he resided until he died of respiratory failure on March 3, 1994. A fifth novel, "The Sleep of Reason", was left unfinished at the time of his death.

Bibliography

*"Nothing but the Night"
*"Stoner" (1965)
*"Butcher's Crossing"
*"Augustus"
*"The Necessary Lie" (Verb poetry series, v. 2)
*"The Broken Landscape: Poems"

References

External links

* [http://www.mysanantonio.com/entertainment/books/stories/MYSA082706.9P.bookstoner.b81617.html My San Antonio biography]
* [http://libinfo.uark.edu/specialcollections/findingaids/williamsje.html John Williams Papers at the University of Arkansas]
* [http://www.pshares.org/issues/article.cfm?prmarticleID=1190 Appreciation and interview at "Ploughshares"]