Phillip B. Williams

This information is accurate as of the fellowship year indicated for each fellow.

Phillip B. Williams is a Chicago native and the author of the poetry collection Thief in the Interior (Alice James Books, 2016). His artistic interests manifest through lyrical and narrative investigations of the aesthetic possibilities and historical implications of the grotesque and through (re)creation of Afro-diasporic mythologies within contemporary timeframes. 

Williams is researching, writing, and revising poems (title: “Mutiny”) and prose (title: “Threshold”). Within both genres, he hopes to research and explore Black folklore, African-diasporic mythologies and spiritual practices, and alternative ways of documenting Black selfhood outside of the human/nonhuman dichotomy.

Williams has received a 2017 Whiting Award, the 2017 Kate Tufts Discovery Award, a 2017 Lambda Literary Award, a 2017 Whirling Prize, a nomination for an NAACP Image Award, and an honorable mention for the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award. He currently teaches literature at Bennington College and is a member of the founding faculty for the Randolph College low-residency MFA program in creative writing.