Diane Williams

Diane Williams’s eleventh story collection, I Hear You’re Rich, was published last August. She is editor of NOON.

Story: ‘Fredella’

Diane Williams, 19 January 2023

One woman grew her hair so long it dragged across the floor as she walked. People thought she was pleasing to look at and she wore highly decorated clothing.

And facing the gods was joyful for her too. Foremost, she had to face herself – and she thought she was so inspirational.

She did not see her darker purposes … These lay far away in veiled areas.

Invariably she says to her...

Story: ‘Chuck’

Diane Williams, 18 August 2022

But this story is not about Chuck. Chuck Chuck, so to say.

She cannot have endured the man for long, but she did – because hers is a tale of passion.

See how she stroked her salvage – as she dusted the elk family figurines that Chuck gave her – as she tried to bring back strong memories of adoration or lust.

And can you believe that? – that Chuck Rosso, whom she had...

Story: ‘Riviera’

Diane Williams, 10 March 2022

So what about the mother and daughter’s shared jealousy, guilt, strain or pain – those?

Oh, must everybody have to deal with those?

Don’t imagine.

The mother is a slightly brave, a slightly unembarrassed person who can be quite social and today she has just written this letter.

Dear Teresa,

Well, I don’t know how to say I am wretched. It is terribly sad that I am living at...

Story: ‘Mother of Nature’

Diane Williams, 4 November 2021

My brother’s words when I hear them these days seem not to go into my ears – but down some other deeper artery.

He said, ‘It’s mother’s house and I just think of it as home.’

‘I would never ever go there today,’ I said. And we were in the middle of a paved two-way drive in the park, having left it up to the pack of people we were in among to...

Two Stories

Diane Williams, 29 July 2021

Seated Woman

Oh, I had my worm’s eye view of him when I was down on the carpet to pick up my ink pen that had slipped off of my lap when I stood. I saw the canopy of his jaw, his jawbones.

God … will I never know if I make things better for Victor?

I would need to go along with him and there was no denying he was piqued, and I was putting up resistance. He wanted to show me...

Molasses Nog: Diane Williams

Ange Mlinko, 18 April 2019

Rushing​ out of the house for an appointment, I grabbed what I thought was Diane Williams’s Collected Stories. When I retrieved the book from my bag, I was surprised to find it was...

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