Richard Garcia & Katherine Williams

Richard Garcia

Richard Garcia was born in San Francisco in 1941 and began writing in his teens. After publishing his chap book, Selected Poems, in 1972, he stopped writing for a number of years until an encouraging letter from Octavio Paz convinced him to return to writing. In 1978 he published a bilingual book for children, My Aunt Otilia’s Spirits, and University of Pittsburgh Press published The Flying Garcias in 1991. He earned the MFA degree in creative writing from Warren Wilson College Writers’ Program in 1994, during which time his first collection, The Flying Garcias, was published by University of Pittsburgh. His third volume of poetry with BOA Editions, The Chair, was chosen by Poetry Magazine editor Don Share as the best book of 2015. The Other Odyssey won the 2012 American Poetry Journal Book Prize, and his seventh volume, Porridge, was chosen by Tom Lombardo for the 2016 Press 53 Prize..

Richard’s publication credits include Ploughshares, The Georgia Review, and the Colorado Review, and among his distinctions are the Pushcart Prize, Best American Poetry, the Georgia Poetry Circuit, and a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. For twelve years he was Poet-in-residence at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, where he conducted workshops in art and poetry for young inpatients. Richard teaches creative writing in the Antioch University Los Angeles MFA program, as well as privately throughout the United States.  He makes his home on James Island, South Carolina with his wife, Katherine Williams, and their dog Max. 

Katherine Williams

Katherine Williams, a native Southerner, was born into the Navy and spent her teens and twenties in Charleston SC, where she hung on to literature for dear life. She majored in French at the College of Charleston, learned to surf, screen T-shirts and movies, and do science. In 1996 she moved Los Angeles, where she worked in biomedical research at UCLA, surfed occasionally, and began writing poems.

She is now back on James Island SC with her husband, poet Richard Garcia, and their cattle-dog, Max. A community arts advocate, she has served on the board of The Poetry Society of SC since 2005, where she established their Warrior Poets Series; was founding chairman of James Island Arts Council;and is the program director for Poetry at McLeod.

Retired now from medical research, she dabbles in environmental science, surfing, website and textile design, art collecting, classical cello, and the garden.