Background

Beatriz Williams was born in Seattle, Washington.

Education

Williams received her general education at Kentwood High School from which she graduated in 1990. Then she attended Stanford University and after that, she graduated with a Master of Business Administration in Finance from Columbia University.

Career

Beatriz worked as a communication and corporate strategy consultant in New York and London before she turned her attention to writing novels that combine her passion for history with an obsessive devotion to voice and characterization. A family friend helped Williams make her connection with an editor at Tor where she received advice about seeking out writers’ groups. She was also encouraged to attend a conference aimed at sharpening a writer’s storytelling tools, which served as a breakthrough in her career.

Williams, who in her previous career worked on Wall Street, has mined many of the 20th century's historical treasures for her books, which include A Hundred Summers, Along the Infinite Sea, and A Certain Age, the first of her Jazz Age series.

Achievements

• Beatriz Williams' biggest achievement is in becoming one of the internationally bestselling authors who write in the genre of historical fiction, as well as the successful screenwriter with the television adaptation of her book, The Summer Wives. Beatriz’s books have won numerous awards, have been translated into more than a dozen languages, and appear regularly in bestseller lists around the world.

Works

More photos

• book

  • The House on Cocoa Beach

    (Lose yourself in a sweeping love story this summer - perf...)

    2017
  • The Wicked City

    (In the first book of a breathtaking new trilogy by bestse...)

    2017
  • The Wicked Redhead

    (The dazzling narrator of The Wicked City brings her mesme...)

    2019
  • The Summer Wives

    (In the summer of 1951, Miranda Schuyler arrives on elite,...)

    2018
  • Her Last Flight

    (The beloved author returns with a remarkable novel of bot...)

    2020
  • The Secret Life of Violet Grant

    (A story of love and intrigue that travels from Kennedy-er...)

    2014
  • Cocoa Beach

    (Burdened by a dark family secret, Virginia Fortescue flee...)

    2017
  • The Golden Hour

    (Newly-widowed Leonora “Lulu” Randolph arrives in the Baha...)

    2019
  • Overseas

    (Experience a love that transcends time in this sensation ...)

    2012
  • All the Ways We Said Goodbye

    (As war breaks out, Aurelie becomes trapped on the wrong s...)

    2020
  • The Glass Ocean

    (Her finances are in dire straits and bestselling author S...)

    2018
  • Tiny Little Thing

    (In the summer of 1966, Christina “Tiny” Hardcastle stands...)

    2015
  • A Hundred Summers

    (Lily Dane has returned to Seaview, Rhode Island, where he...)

    2013
  • Along the Infinite Sea

    (In the autumn of 1966, Pepper Schuyler's problems are in ...)

    2015
  • A Certain Age

    (As the freedom of the Jazz Age transforms New York City, ...)

    2016

Views

Quotations: “I feel so incredibly lucky to have this opportunity, so I try not to waste a moment. Obviously, every career has its ups and downs and moments of frustration. And particularly I think in an industry like this, where you're constantly being judged, much more than you would in a regular job in a cubicle somewhere. It's a job where you really have to have a lot of discipline and a real sense of always moving on to the next book and the next idea and not looking back.”

“I instinctively approach storytelling from a visual, visceral, scene-based perspective. I like to say that I slip myself inside the skin of the character as I write, and when you do that, the right details just appear when you need them. This is really what I love most about the process – how writing gives me permission to take on a completely different personality, see different things, regard people differently, speak and react and think otherwise than as myself.”

“Work on your craft relentlessly, as I continue to do with each one of my novels. You have to develop an ability to slip inside the skin of another person, even someone (gasp!) who may not be remotely like you and give that character voice. Keep your skin thick and your persistence fed. Be alive to all the inspiration around you.”

“So my advice for aspiring writers, number one, is to read constantly and critically, within your genre and outside it. Number two, find a way to learn your craft from someone who does it exceptionally well. I take the position that you should never stop learning, you should never feel as if your writing is as good as you can possibly make it.”

“I had always wanted to write books, and my business career was something I did to pay the bills and justify an expensive university education! Once I was home with the kids, though, I knew it was now or never if I wanted to develop the career I really wanted,” she said in an interview with Book Reporter. “And even if I crashed and burned, my kids would always need me, so the natural terror of failure receded just enough to allow me through... along with some very hard work.”

“Hats, gloves, cigarettes, and horse manure – all those things inhabited the past in spades. So, you have to really immerse yourself in that world, to open your senses, to challenge all your assumptions, and you should rely as much as possible on primary sources, such as diaries, letters, and newspapers.”

“I could not believe the tragedy and the loss [of the First World War], the emptiness left behind. I don't think people realize what a cultural effect it had. You couldn't have had the '20s without World War I, and that sense of emptiness that overcame us.”

“And this journey that we took is probably the most extraordinary journey we've taken in the course of human history. There’s the spiritual side of it, which is the tragedy of the war and what it does to us psychologically, but then also this unbelievably rapid change in science and technology. And you have the automobile, and you have women voting, and you have Prohibition - all these things taking place in society.”

“If there is one constant theme going through all my books, it's that tension between the romanticism of the 19th century that speaks to human emotion, and then modernism, and they're rubbing up against each other. Throughout the course of the 20th century it's just this struggle, isn't it? And to me, that's endlessly fascinating and endlessly fertile in terms of storytelling.”

"First and foremost, you have to read as widely and deeply as possible. You have to work on your craft relentlessly, as I continue to do with each one of my novels. You have to develop an ability to slip inside the skin of another person, even someone (gasp!) who may not be remotely like you and give that character voice. My own breakthrough came when I had this “aha” moment about storytelling - finding the right story, finding the “juice” in the story that makes it compelling on a human level (I was an anthropology major in college, so that helps), and then telling it in such a way that the reader can’t leave the page. Keep your skin thick and your persistence fed. Be alive to all the inspiration around you."

Interests

• history

Connections

Beatriz now lives near the Connecticut shore with her husband and four children.

References

• Author's Beatriz Williams Official Website