Robert J. Williams is the author of Strivers and Other Stories (2016), winner of a Washington Writers’ Publishing House Fiction Prize. His fiction has appeared in Callaloo and the anthologies This Is What America Looks Like (2021) and America’s Future (2025). A 2024 Kimbilio Fiction Fellow and four-time Larry Neal Writers’ Award recipient, his work has earned recognition from the Santa Fe Writers Project Literary Awards and the Letter Review Prize.

Originally from Augusta, Georgia, Robert earned degrees from Northwestern University and the University of Georgia’s Graduate School of Journalism and Mass Communications. He now lives in Washington, D.C., where he has worked professionally in digital communications, marketing, and web technology since the dot-com era. He is an alumnus of VONA, Callaloo Oxford, Hurston/Wright, Tin House, Sewanee Writers’ Conference, and the Kimbilio Fellowship, having studied with writers including Colson Whitehead, ZZ Packer, Ravi Howard, Tayari Jones, Peter Ho Davies, Maurice Carlos Ruffin, Angela Flournoy, and Jabari Asim. He is currently seeking representation for his second novel, which explores family connections across generations.