Andrea Marie Williams

Author & Poet

Andrea
Marie
Williams

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Dedicated to the little girl in the attic — I love you, little bug. I’ll write us out of this place.

About

Writing the ghosts out of the corners and into the daylight, haunting the narrative from the inside out.

Andrea Marie Williams

Currently In the final edits of Abrahamic Religion. Waiting on illustrations for Speak To Me Your Evil. Writing from Alabama. Listening to Radiohead and Ethel Cain.

Andrea Marie Williams writes fiction and poetry with themes rooted in the American South, drawn to generational inheritance, the survival of faith, and the complex nature of human relationships. Her work is a constant flow of interwoven experiences and psychological explorations.

An American Army veteran, mother, and lifelong writer. She grew up on the sands of California, and now resides in Alabama.

How I got here

When I was little, I told my mother once it felt like my brain was full. She raised an eyebrow at me. “Full?” she asked. She put a hand to my forehead. “You don’t feel warm, baby.” She was checking for a fever, for a sickness, for a headache.

While my mind raced a million miles a second, creating family trees, universes, historical timelines, and alternative event chains. I knew before I had language to express what I was experiencing, that one day, the thoughts in my head would change my life.

I would shelve ideas, I’ll write this when I understand it one day. Stories would burn in me like a fever would, in the middle of the night, like a match struck.

There was no first story. There were only people noticing I had begun. I don’t remember my first page, or my first idea. There was only the beginning of my consciousness and proximity to pens.

So as you read my work, know that I bled for it, before I understood a single phrase of it.

— A.M.W.

Selected Works

A Catalogue

Three works to date — one in final edits, one in print, one in progress.

I.

Abrahamic Religion

Novel · Southern Gothic

1965, Alabama. June left the convent looking for God, and Something else found her first.

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From Chapter Two

“Where are we going?” I speak quietly when I first wake up. I’ve been trying to be louder, I miss the mornings I would spend entirely in the disciplined silence of prayer. I hear the quick inhale of smoke before he says anything to me. He holds it in his lungs but I can already smell the smoke leaking out of his mouth. “Just the industrial district across the way. We will probably end up stayin’ there for the night.” He exhales the bitter air into the space between us, but it quickly filters out of my window.

The Chevy rolls past the magnolias and the bare twiggy persimmon trees with wild brambles below them. They usually have forgotten fruit lying below, but now they stand alone in the cold. Sometime in August, the fruit will return, hot and left to the ground, some of them will even be split open and pregnant with wasps gorging on the pulp.

I pull his jacket tighter around my body. The soft fabric slides over my shoulders and lower neck. The rough texture swallows me. I reach into the pockets for my rosary. The purple glass beads slip over my fingers as cool river stones might. I can almost feel them hum in the mornings, beads can’t hum, but mine do, they always have.

My thumb brushes over the silhouette of the holy broken body still nailed to his cross.

I believe in God.

I lean my back against the window, my head finds a good spot by the crook of the bench seat and the window frame. I watch him as he drives from somewhere else in my body, I let him become the background of the creed. The Father Almighty. I continue praying.

His freckles deepen in the sunlight as it crests over the trees and I begin to wonder what it would be like to be hated by him.

Completed · Pending Edits
II.

You deserved a lullaby too.

Poetry · Collection

A collection of poems about grief and motherhood.

The stars and the sea

If I am lucky enough If I am right in thinking that there is a heaven, There is a chance, Someday all of my children will be with me. I will be surrounded with it, The little voices I never got to know in life. The mystery of it all, The grief will never be cured. Surrounded by the angels, The ones that gave me motherhood, Oh a day that will be. When we are heaven and earth. And if there is nothing, The oh, so perfect stillness The circle of the universe, Growing, begging to be anything but small. In the end we all are together once again, Flowing from one place to another The synergy of our souls, Finally in the perfect alignment we missed on earth. Perhaps my babies are stars And I will become the sea, So I may hold them, Rock them in my waves every night, Oh a day that will be. When we are stars and the sea.
Buy on Amazon →
In Print
III.

Speak To Me Your Evil

Poetry · Full-Length Collection

The self as conquered territory, in the language of Gods, the empire of Rome, and the desire to be loved.

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I will not steal my victory

Stolen. I never stole you. Standing over my casket, in a dream washing away the last of our lies A perfect portrait Chaos Solace Humanity Broken into moans They wanted to destroy us. I never stole you I found you Spilling your name out of my mouth Standing over our graves, in a dream fading away the last of our minds The perfect picture Virtue Serenity Humanity Broken into prayers We destroyed each other first.
Complete · Pending Illustrations

For Readers

Abrahamic Religion is in its final edits. I’m assembling a small circle of first readers before it goes out into the world.

Apply to Read →

Showcased Work

Selected Verse

The conquest of Juno

The Father, The Son, And The Holy Spirit. Does the apple fall far from his hand? I pick it up from where he tossed it. haphazard, a man’s habit. Did you do this? Does it matter? It is done. The apple lodged in the middle of his throat. Stuck and striking, Evidence of the lie, Evidence that he couldn’t swallow the law of God. Eve— He says. Please— He will come looking soon. I cannot be a failure in the eyes of my Father The broken skin drips the sugar nectar Warm and sticking to my palm, God looks down. His daughter’s fingers sticky and wet He always thought I’d dip my fingers in the forbidden, this only is what he expected. Father please— I beg His hand comes up in a silence. A perfect palm of rejected honesty He thinks it was me. The serpent slips around my ankle, Horror — a noose to hang me upside down Adam— tell him— tell him it was you— His eyes only touch the perfect dark green of lush paradise below I will be cursed For the sin of asking a man To only answer for his crimes. I will be struck for a lie — his lie— I couldn’t confess for him in his place. I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children. A violet faced, screaming infant — the sweat damp mother of twenty and four hours His daughter with sticking fingers From the dark blood of anguish Only he lies unscathed for it. The contempt in the corner for bitching about creation He will never understand, I have been given it. The pain of making cures me of the guilt he carries. A punishment for a small woman A victory for the defiant Endurance for sake of spite. I will pay for it ten fold, I’ll find redemption with him in my arms. We are different you and I. It was supposed to be perfect One flesh and two consciences And the crime lies at your feet. Made to fall with you instead of for you. Paradise is lost, no one has won. The man, His wife And my son.
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Piece by Piece

It’s for you. Take it all, Take none if it suits you. Take my hair, My hazel eyes, Take my smile. My lilting laughter. Piece by piece. It’s all yours, Take it all. Take none if it suits you. Take my kindness, My temper too. Take my expressions, My funny little freckles. Piece by piece, Tear away every piece. Whenever you’d like, Whenever you need. To be a mother is to give yourself away, Expecting nothing to return. For you I’ll do it willingly, not knowing if you will ever exist. All of the energy, Combining in a moment, Only to be torn from me again. Without anything to show for it. I gave it all away, Receiving the ashes in return. The hopelessness of knowing you were of me, And now you are gone. Until the second you left, You were loved, Unconditionally.

from You deserved a lullaby too.

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I too am Alexander

If you ever wonder what the echoes of your influence look like, Know that all who seek me out also seek you. When they say your name I turn around, Because what is of me is also of you. As stained glass is to a chapel, Where they look for color, they find the ancient construction of us. Embedded into consecrated walls, Smoke from holy wood, sweet and desperate. Everyone who heard my voice tastes your words All who read my poems have seen your blood. Where your shadow lingers, my pen traces. No one knows me without hearing your name. I follow the footsteps you leave, And we take turns haunting each other’s dreams.
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Glimmer by the oven light

I’m living our life with someone new. He drinks tea out of your teacups, He makes our bed with my colors. He washed your smell off my neck with his kiss. It lingers in your old songs, I find traces of you inside my fingers. Every now and again I look at your name on paper and glue it on my paintings. Hidden away in suns and stars. Our fire burns a million miles away. Ten years lost and wasted to drunk memory Under lock and key— The remnants of what my brain can conjure The smell of conditioner on shoulders Clean hands, slender and strong A faint shimmer of taste Then the baby cries— I blink you away.

from the manuscript in progress Speak To Me Your Evil

The Correspondence

The California Magnolia

Letters from the writing desk — and word when the novel is finished. Read and subscribe on Substack.

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Get in touch

For enquiries about the work, readings, or correspondence.

Andreamariewilliamsauthor@gmail.com