Lynda Williams: Writing the Beauty and the Hell of It

By She Rises Studios Editorial Team

© Lyndsay Greenwood Photography

For Canadian writer Lynda Williams, storytelling begins not with neat themes or carefully mapped intentions, but with urgency. Over fifteen years of writing the stories that would become The Beauty and the Hell of It & Other Stories, she followed what insisted on being said rather than what seemed safe or expected. Only later did the shape of the collection reveal itself. It became a portrait of the crushing absurdity of modern life, particularly as experienced by women, and of the strange coexistence of tenderness and discomfort that runs through everyday existence.

Lynda is fascinated by contradiction. She sees beauty not as something separate from sadness but as something sharpened by it. Even the softness of a horse’s nose, she suggests, can feel softer when touched in a moment of devastation. That sensitivity to emotional tension forms the backbone of her fiction and reflects the questions that continue to haunt her as a writer. How do such contradictions live side by side in ordinary life? Why do they matter so deeply? Her stories grow from that curiosity.

Her literary voice has often been described, half playfully and half seriously, as what might emerge if Raymond Carver wrote feisty women. The description began as a practical response while preparing an artist’s statement for an award application, yet it has stayed with her ever since. Lynda admires Carver not only for his minimalist realism but for his willingness to write unapologetically about working class people. That commitment resonates strongly with her own background and artistic instincts. Like Carver, she aims to write work that is literary yet accessible, grounded yet emotionally piercing.

The comparison also signals her confidence in the authenticity of her voice. Lynda does not try to conceal where she comes from or reshape her language to meet conventional expectations. Growing up next to a barn does not produce the rhythms of the Queen’s English, she observes, and she has never believed it should. Instead, she embraces the sounds and perspectives that shaped her. If there is audacity in her writing, it lies in her refusal to smooth away its origins.

That refusal extends to the kinds of characters she chooses to create. Lynda is particularly known for her unlikeable or unsettling female protagonists, figures who resist the expectation that women in fiction must remain sympathetic or pleasing. Her decision to write such characters emerged partly from confusion and partly from conviction. During workshops, she repeatedly heard that readers did not like her protagonists. The response puzzled her. She wondered whether the same criticism would be applied as readily to male antiheroes.

Rather than adjust her approach, she leaned further into it. She calls the expectation that female characters must be pleasant the “loveliness imperative,” and she rejects it outright. For Lynda, literature should not reduce complex experiences of class, feminism, or mental illness into palatable narratives designed to reassure readers. Instead, she trusts readers to struggle alongside her characters and to confront the double standards that shape both fiction and real life.

This commitment to complexity also reflects a broader social curiosity. Lynda deliberately explores what happens when women claim freedoms that have long been normalized for men. 

In some ways, she describes herself as acting like a man to test a hypothesis. How many readers become uncomfortable when women refuse to play nice. How many resist characters who challenge expectations of politeness and compliance? Through such questions, her work invites readers to examine their own assumptions about entitlement, comfort, and gendered behavior.

Place has also played a crucial role in shaping Lynda’s perspective. She grew up in the Eastern Townships of Quebec and later built her life in Alberta, a transition that altered how she understood both herself and her writing. Leaving a farm for Calgary created a form of disruption that proved creatively valuable. Calgary, though large, still allowed for moments of recognition and familiarity that softened the anonymity of city life. In that environment she experienced an unusual shift from country girl to citified woman, a reversal that continues to shape how she sees the world.

© Lyndsay Greenwood Photography

The experience also taught her to code switch in conversation so others would not judge her speech. In writing, however, she does something different. Instead of code switching, she code blends. The voices of both regions remain present in her work, layered together rather than separated. 

Even when her stories avoid naming specific locations, the emotional landscape often returns to the Townships, which she still considers her default setting.

Recognition from the Lieutenant Governor of Alberta Emerging Artist Award marked a turning point in her confidence as a writer. Like many artists, Lynda has struggled with imposter syndrome, a challenge intensified by her working class background. The award offered reassurance at a moment when she needed it most. It suggested that her work possessed literary value and deserved serious attention. That validation helped her continue through the inevitable rejections that accompany a writing life.

Publication in respected journals such as Grain, The New Quarterly, and The Humber Literary Review reinforced another lesson: persistence matters. One story that eventually appeared in The New Quarterly had been rejected by more than twenty other outlets before finding its home. The journal had seemed out of reach, yet it became the place where the story finally belonged. The experience reminded Lynda that advocacy for a piece of writing may exist even when the writer is losing hope.

She also learned not to rush the process of submission. Craft takes time, and distance can reveal weaknesses that enthusiasm hides. Her advice to writers is simple but practical. When a piece feels finished, put it away for six weeks. Returning with fresh eyes often reveals new possibilities for improvement.

Lynda’s journey into public writing began early. As a high school student she worked as a stringer for a local newspaper, earning a byline before she had fully developed her craft. At first, the appeal of publication included money and recognition, even if both were modest. Over time, however, her motivation shifted. She became increasingly interested in the emotional impact literature could have on readers.

Reading at open mic events confirmed this possibility. Hearing audiences laugh or respond to familiar situations in new ways transformed her understanding of what writing could do. It was no longer only about expression. It became about connection. She began to imagine literature as something that could shape how readers think and feel about their own experiences.

© Lyndsay Greenwood Photography

That sense of responsibility informs her approach to difficult themes such as class and mental illness. Lynda writes with the authority of lived experience while remaining committed to fiction as an imaginative form. The details in her stories may come from real life, but the characters themselves are invented. Her primary obligation, as she sees it, is honesty. Accuracy of emotional experience matters more than reassurance or comfort.

For emerging writers who fear their stories might be too strange, too bold, or too uncomfortable, Lynda offers encouragement rooted in conviction. Doubt, she believes, often signals importance. The stories that feel risky are frequently the ones worth telling. Writing them can teach the author something essential about the world and about themselves.

Publication is a separate decision, but the act of writing belongs entirely to the writer. In that space, freedom is absolute. For Lynda Williams, that freedom remains the beginning of everything.