British
writer, three times nominated for the Philip K. Dick
Award; has published twelve novels and one short story
collection. This is her own words about herself:
"My mother's a Gothic novelist, and my father was a part-time conjuror, so I didn't have a hope. I've been a science fiction fan since the age of ten, and started writing seriously about 7 years ago. Jack Vance'sPlanet of Adventure series was responsible, and I'm still a huge fan of Vance. Other favourites include Ursula Le Guin, Ray Bradbury, Mary Gentle, George R R Martin, C J Cherryh, Tanith Lee and Marion Zimmer Bradley.
"I now write full time, but have had various incarnations. My background is in History and Philosophy of Science: having done degrees in philosophy and artificial intelligence at the universities of Manchester and Sussex, I did a doctorate at Cambridge, graduating in 1993. I did a variety of part-time jobs, including a now-infamous stint on Brighton's pier as a tarot reader, before full time work as administrator for an education program in Kazakhstan. This was not entirely successful and resulted in a partial collapse of the then-Kazakhstani cabinet. I next worked for an educational consultancy in the region and moved out to Kazakhstan in 1996 with my then partner Charles. The following years were spent in going back and forth between the region and the UK, but in 2000 the collapse of the post-Soviet economy took our business with it. I spent a year running an IT program at Brighton Women's Centre and became a full time writer in 2002."
Nowadays Liz Williams lives in Glastonbury, where she is co-director of a witchcraft supply business. She is the secretary of the Milford SF Writers' Workshop, and also teaches creative writing and the history of Science Fiction. Her partner Trevor Jones is also active in the witchcraft business (and, among other things, a practising druid).