🎙 INTERVIEW: Reimagining the Campus Novel w/ Missouri Williams
​** This is a LIVE interview with Missouri Williams about the craft of writing and reality of building a creative career.**
​How do you write fiction that feels intellectually dangerous? How do you follow an award-winning debut?
​Missouri Williams, author of The Doloriad—winner of the 2023 Republic of Consciousness Prize—returns with The Vivisectors, a fiercely imagined campus novel about conspiracy, complicity, and the instability of truth.
​Williams has quickly established herself as an uncompromising literary voice. In The Vivisectors, she turns her gaze to a decaying university city overrun by vegetation, where a reclusive graduate, Agathe, becomes entangled in institutional scandal and ideological warfare.Â
​Join us for a conversation with Missouri Williams about sustaining bold literary vision and writing her latest novel The Vivisectors.
​We’ll also explore:
​Moving from a prize-winning debut to a radically different second novel
​Writing morally ambiguous characters without judgment
​Structuring ideological conflict so it feels human, not abstract
​The pressures and freedoms that follow early acclaim
​Balancing publication, visibility, and private artistic development
​About Missouri WilliamsÂ
​Missouri Williams is the author of The Doloriad, which won the 2023 Republic of Consciousness Prize, was shortlisted for the VCU Cabell First Novelist Award, and named a best book of 2022 by Vulture. Her work has also appeared in The Nation, The Baffler, The Believer, Granta, and The Drift. Her newest book is The Vivisectors.Â
​Your London Writers' Salon Hosts:
​Parul Bavishi and Matt Trinetti are the co-founders of the London Writers' Salon, creators of the webby-nominated Writers' Hour daily writing sessions, and hosts of the London Writers' Salon podcast.
​Parul Bavishi has been an editor for over a decade. In addition to running LWS she helps thriller, YA and non-fiction writers level up their craft and get published. She writes and edits for the Story Grid. She has worked as an editor and literary scout at Random House, Quercus & Eccles Fisher. She analyses TV hit shows (Killing Eve, Ozark, Game of Thrones) on the Story Grid Showrunners Podcast.
​Matt Trinetti is a writer, publisher, TEDx speaker, and facilitator. In addition to running LWS, Matt designs programs to help unfulfilled professionals pursue creative work, start businesses, and reinvent their careers. Matt's work has appeared in Quartz, Observer, Creative Mornings, and on his blog GiveLiveExplore.
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