David Williams grew up in Shropshire and studied art history at the University of Leeds before training as an archivist. He has worked as a museum registrar, a night baker, and a clerk behind a butcher's counter, occupations that seeded his preoccupation with the everyday labor that feeds a city. After a fellowship in Emilia-Romagna, he split his time between Bologna and London, writing essays on food, memory, and class for independent journals.
His debut collection, Salt the Margin, won the Fen End First Book Prize and was longlisted for the Northbridge Short Fiction Award. His essay cycle The Tender Cut appeared from Small Weather Press in 2021. Williams has taught workshops at public libraries, volunteers with community kitchens, and keeps an unruly notebook of found phrases. He lives in a small flat above a greengrocer's in Deptford.
