Dr. Niama L. J. Williams - Editor
I am an author, editor, and consultant who loves to make others shine through polishing their words.
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Overview
I am a copy editor who loves to make people shine through polishing their words. I taught literature and composition at the college level for 17+ years, and loved working with undergraduates and budding writers. I am also the author of 13 books of my own, and know first-hand the struggle of committing pen to paper. I will stand by your side and virtually help your manuscript become the best it can possibly be.
Non-Fiction
Biographies & Memoirs
Inspirational
Fiction
Literary Fiction
Mystery & Crime
Poetry
Short Story
Thriller & Suspense
Awards
- Contributor to Check the Rhyme: An Anthology of Female Poets & Emcees, edited by DuEwa Frazier, LitNoire Publishing, an NAACP Image Award nominee, February 2007.
- Contributor to My Soul to His Spirit: Soulful Expressions from Black Daughters to Their Fathers, edited by Melda Beaty, SoulDictates Publishing, winner of Fresh Voices Award 2006, African-American Studies category, Writer’s Marketing Association, 2006.
- Listed within “A Celebration of Women Writers” (http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/), Mary Mark Ockerbloom, editor; University of Pennsylvania Digital Library, 2006.
- Honorable Mention, Non-Rhyming Poetry Category, Writer’s Digest 2004 Writing Competition.
- Who's Who In America 2004, 58th edition.
- Honorable Mention, Rhyming Poem Category, Writer's Digest 2000 Writing Competition.
- Honorable Mention – “Growing Out of Home” (a collection of short stories), Phi Kappa Phi All-University Honor Society’s 11th Annual Faculty and Student Recognition Awards, University of Southern California, 1992.
Work experience
Author, Public Speaker, Talk Show Host
Blowing Up Barriers Enterprises
November, 2006
–
Present
(almost 14 years)
2006-current BLOWING UP BARRIERS ENTERPRISES Long Beach, CA
Author of ten books, co-author of three, each describing survival of multiple traumas including child abuse, homelessness, and discrimination. Co-hosted BlogTalkRadio.com show in which fellow authors were interviewed about their writing processes, writing philosophies, and the origins of their work. Interviewed a multiplicity of times on radio and in print about my published work and presented that work as featured poet/author or guest poet/author to audiences in both Los Angeles and Orange Counties in California as well as to audiences throughout the Delaware Valley (Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware).
Professor of Literature (Both Part- and Full-time)
Colleges & Universities in Los Angeles & Philadelphia
September, 1993
–
June, 2011
(over 17 years)
Taught literature and composition at all levels within colleges and universities on both coasts, from introductory courses to senior seminars. Experienced with typical undergraduates, community college students, adult students, returning students, et cetera.
Portfolio (9 selected works)
Black Poetic Feminism: The Imagination of Toi Derricotte
Ph.D., Niama Leslie Williams
Sexual abuse happens. Domestic violence happens. We know it happens. We have child protective services. We watch Law and Order: SVU. We are surrounded by sex in our media, and we are surrounded by sexual violence in our media. And yet I have turned to the work of Toi Derricotte because we are not surrounded by sexual violence in our literary criticism, because we are not discussing sexual viol... read more
Steven
Niama Leslie Williams
Dr. Niama Williams' Steven is a psychological triumph. This long overdue Song of Survival, punctuated by the cataclysmic overtures of epiphany, minimalist agreement, and happenstance, is proof that the arrival of the truth does not always come via verbal messenger. From the beginning with "Schindler's List," Dr. Williams asks the film s director to explain, robbing a people of their origins." ... read more
Famous Faces
Ph.D. Niama Leslie Williams
Chris Abani. Barry Manilow. Wynton Marsalis. Jerry Quickley. Jody Kuykendall. The already famous and the one on her way up. Articles in the newspaper, paparazzi bait, sought out for the alumni newsletter, for international halls of fame, for Pulitzers, Emmys, Grammys; recipients of some, winners of many. But what of the poet, toiling away in her room, alone, who watches, understands, yet never... read more
THE JOURNEY
Ph.D. Niama Leslie Williams
What does it mean to be young, Black, female, intelligent, gifted with second sight, on your way to a Ph.D. and in love for the first time? The Journey presents us with exactly this young woman. The pivotal question becomes is she sane and he deceitful, or has she lost her mind? The answer is both. Not an easy, cohesive ride, the narrative thread of an African American female mystic falling de... read more
SOJOURN IN CALIDIA
Ph.D. Niama Leslie Williams
She's on the run and she doesn't quite know who is pursuing. Is it the man with the unrecognizable face? The boy with the eyes that terrify? The man dressed as a campesino who doubles as The Interrogator's assistant? Who IS pursuing Cassie Daniels and what is her real mission in Calido? Sojourn in Calidia takes us through urban landscape, steamy jungle and a variety of human consciousnesses-so... read more
DETECTIVE FICTION: THE NOVEL
Ph.D. Niama Leslie Williams
Is the drop-dead gorgeous psychiatrist in love or is some other far more nefarious plot afoot? The Journey pulls us in and leaves us wondering. Told she was schizophrenic at 19, it takes a trip to an unexpected homeland for the real truth to sink in: she is not crazy, but psychic. Raised by a degreed registered nurse and thus devoted to Western medicine, the hardest person to convince is herse... read more
SOUL WORK
Ph.D. Niama Leslie Williams
Soul Work. The people one loses one's head over. The faces that haunt you long after death-death of love, death of affection, cessation of passion. The countenances and spirits that occupy cherished space between heart and lung and consciousness: Niama Williams gives voice to both, puts in words the entities-water, rain, that psychiatrist who took your heart, the glen in the outback where you ... read more
BROWN WOMEN
Niama Leslie Williams
The women she's known and loved. The women who've raised her. The Brown Women in literary works who've seared their stories into her memory. Women who have survived, women who ensure the survival of others. Women who love when love consistently threatens to walk out of the door. Women who create where only barrenness is expected to exist.
Sex, Blood, & the Mountains
Dr. Niama Leslie Williams
She is on the run, and doesn't know it. She is running to a freedom she has always wanted, but does not know how to claim. Her inner wildness is finally surfacing, but she has limited time to explore it; is on unsure feet as it rears its head and surveys the territory. She only knows that she must have it, this freedom, again and again and again.
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Los Angeles, CA, United States
