Writing has saved my life more than once . . . ❞ Michael Williams
I have been keeping journals since I was thirteen. In high school, I published poetry, film reviews, and articles on local matters in our school newspaper. In college and university, I entered the field of radio, producing programmes featuring local singer-songwriters and popular artists in blues, rock and roll, and folk music. And while at university, I worked as a research assistant for the Canadian Poetry Press and later saw my M.A. thesis on the early Canadian poet Adam Hood Burwell published. A SSHRC scholarship enabled me to move to Scotland where I embarked on a Ph.D. in English Literature. As a graduate student at the University of Edinburgh I was fortunate to be invited to teach in both the English Department and at the Centre of Canadian Studies. In addition to my teaching, I wrote, edited, and published a number of articles for conference proceedings and journals and, in 1991, organized an international Canadian Literature conference at the University.
From 2005 until 2013, I supervised senior classroom teachers in Scotland in writing graduate-level accounts of their professional development. And during the five years I spent living in the north of Scotland, I facilitated a number of creative writing classes and storytelling circles and workshops. Finally, in 2017, I returned to Canada to focus on my own writing. I also joined the Hamilton Mountain Writers Guild (HMWG). Two years later, I was honoured to win a prize for one of my short stories, “All Things Shall Pass”, and saw it published in the HMWG's anthology of stories entitled Arising (available on Amazon).
I continue to put into writing many of the stories I tell orally, including the recent performance of “The Letter” at the 2019 Scottish International Storytelling Festival in Edinburgh.
From 2005 until 2013, I supervised senior classroom teachers in Scotland in writing graduate-level accounts of their professional development. And during the five years I spent living in the north of Scotland, I facilitated a number of creative writing classes and storytelling circles and workshops. Finally, in 2017, I returned to Canada to focus on my own writing. I also joined the Hamilton Mountain Writers Guild (HMWG). Two years later, I was honoured to win a prize for one of my short stories, “All Things Shall Pass”, and saw it published in the HMWG's anthology of stories entitled Arising (available on Amazon).
I continue to put into writing many of the stories I tell orally, including the recent performance of “The Letter” at the 2019 Scottish International Storytelling Festival in Edinburgh.
Extract from my award-winning short story, "All Things Shall Pass":
"Mom placed a plate of grilled cheese sandwiches on the table. "Eat up," she said sharply. Dad raised the paper and kept reading.
I kept staring at Dad hoping to get some sort of clue as to what he was talking about. The front-page headline said something about a "Cuban Missile Crisis" and I wondered if that had something to do with what he was upset about and whether it was connected to the drills we'd been doing at school.
"Are the Cubans going to attack us, Dad? Or the Russians?," I asked.
"Eat your soup, boys!" Mom interjected. "Honestly, Bob, put the paper away."
I flinched expecting Dad to blow up but he simply folded the paper and dropped it on the floor.
"Bob, honestly," Mom complained, "can we just eat our dinner in peace?" Dad ignored her. His silence made my stomach hurt.
I tried to catch Mark's eye but he was too busy slurping his soup. Dean was smacking the bottom of the ketchup bottle. Once, during a Sunday lunch, Dad got mad about something and slammed the table with his hand and, in one motion, cleared the dishes right off the dining room table. Then he got up, knocking over his chair, and told us to "clean up the damn mess."
"Is there going to be a war, Dad?" I asked.
"Just eat up," Mom ordered. She picked up her cigarette from the ashtray on the counter, put it in her mouth and made a sucking noise before blowing out a mushroom cloud of smoke over our heads."
© Michael Williams, published in Arising: a Hamilton Mountain Writers' Guild Anthology, Vol III (2019)
"Mom placed a plate of grilled cheese sandwiches on the table. "Eat up," she said sharply. Dad raised the paper and kept reading.
I kept staring at Dad hoping to get some sort of clue as to what he was talking about. The front-page headline said something about a "Cuban Missile Crisis" and I wondered if that had something to do with what he was upset about and whether it was connected to the drills we'd been doing at school.
"Are the Cubans going to attack us, Dad? Or the Russians?," I asked.
"Eat your soup, boys!" Mom interjected. "Honestly, Bob, put the paper away."
I flinched expecting Dad to blow up but he simply folded the paper and dropped it on the floor.
"Bob, honestly," Mom complained, "can we just eat our dinner in peace?" Dad ignored her. His silence made my stomach hurt.
I tried to catch Mark's eye but he was too busy slurping his soup. Dean was smacking the bottom of the ketchup bottle. Once, during a Sunday lunch, Dad got mad about something and slammed the table with his hand and, in one motion, cleared the dishes right off the dining room table. Then he got up, knocking over his chair, and told us to "clean up the damn mess."
"Is there going to be a war, Dad?" I asked.
"Just eat up," Mom ordered. She picked up her cigarette from the ashtray on the counter, put it in her mouth and made a sucking noise before blowing out a mushroom cloud of smoke over our heads."
© Michael Williams, published in Arising: a Hamilton Mountain Writers' Guild Anthology, Vol III (2019)
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Link to an "Evening of Live Readings", Saturday 17 April 2021 with screenwriter and musician Les Bohem (Los Angeles); storyteller Suzanne Burchell (Hamilton, Ont); theatre director and story weaver June Cupido (Oakville, Ont); horror and fantasy writer Lily Luchesi (Chicago); poet and artist Joanne Marlowe (Hamilton, Ont); poet Amanda Nova (Winnipeg, Man.); storyteller and activist Laura Simms (New York City); and author and storyteller Michael Williams (Hamilton, Ont).
Links to some of my writings and articles:
"The Book That Changed My Life" (2010) - short piece of non-fiction published by the Scottish Book Trust in their anthology The Book That Changed My Life. "Dandelion" (2013) - short story published in Diving in the Moon: Honoring Story, Facilitating Healing by the Healing Story Alliance of the National Storytelling Network. |
Learn more about my writing at michaelwilliamswriter.com
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FOR DATES OF UPCOMING CREATIVE WRITING WORKSHOPS, CHECK THE 'UPCOMING EVENTS' PAGE:
Some of the organizations I've worked with:
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