Pip Williams (author)

Pip Williams
Born1969 (age 56–57)
London, England, UK
OccupationsWriter
Social researcher
Writing career
GenresLiterary fiction, historical fiction

Pip Williams (born 1969) is an Australian author and social researcher. She is best known for her debut novel The Dictionary of Lost Words, published in 2020. Her second novel, The Bookbinder of Jericho, was published in 2023.

Early life and education

Pip Williams was born in London, England in 1969. Her Brazilian mother worked part-time as a hairdresser and her Welsh father was a computer analyst who also wrote children's books. Williams moved with her parents and younger sister to Sydney, New South Wales, in 1972.[1]

She attended Mackellar Girls' High School and grew up on the Northern Beaches of Sydney.[1] When she was 15, a poem she wrote was published in Dolly magazine.[2] She learnt at the age of 17 that she was dyslexic.[1]

After graduating from secondary school, Williams took a gap year in Europe, returning in 1988. She studied science, psychology, and sociology at the Mitchell College of Advanced Education in Bathurst.[1]

She later earned a PhD in public health, focusing on older women and disabled people, at the University of Adelaide.[1]

Career

Williams worked as a social researcher at the Centre for Work and Life at the University of South Australia, where her manager was economist Barbara Pocock.[1] During this time she co-authored Time Bomb: Work, Rest and Play in Australia Today (NewSouth Publishing, 2012), with Barbara Pocock and Natalie Skinner.[3] She did radio production for Radio Northern Beaches and started publishing creative non-fiction in and The Australian and InDaily after moving to Adelaide in 2003.[1][2]

After moving to Italy for a six-month stint in the 2010s and working on organic farms,[1][4] Williams worked as a community planner at Adelaide City Council. While there she helped found the Adelaide City Library.[1] In 2017, she published One Italian Summer, an autobiographical account of her family's time spent in Italy.[2][5]

Williams wrote much of her first novel, The Dictionary of Lost Words, in the State Library of South Australia, based on her research in the Oxford English Dictionary archives.[5] It was published in March 2020,[1] and was sixth on the list of Australian fiction bestsellers in the year of publication.[6] It was well-reviewed,[7][8] sold well,[9] and won several awards, including General Fiction Book of the Year in the Australian Book Industry Awards[10] and the Christina Stead Prize for Fiction at the New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards.[11] It was later adapted for the stage, and a TV series is being made of the novel.[12][13]

Williams' second novel is The Bookbinder of Jericho, which she started writing before Dictionary was published.[1] Also set in Oxford, during the First World War, the story centres on two sisters who work at a book bindery.[14] It has been described as a companion to the first novel,[5] as several characters from The Dictionary of Lost Words also appear in The Bookbinder of Jericho.[15] In May 2024 The Bookbinder of Jericho was awarded General Fiction Book of the Year at the Australian Book Industry Awards.[16]

Personal life

Williams met her partner, Shannon, when she was 19, and they have two sons. They moved from Sydney to a hobby farm in the Adelaide Hills in 2003, with Williams working in the city. They then went Italy for six months with their sons to work as WWOOFers (Willing Workers on Organic Farms), working in Tuscany, Calabria, and Piedmont.[1]

As of 2024 Williams lives in the Adelaide Hills.[4]

She has dyslexia and dysgraphia.[1]

Bibliography

  • One Italian Summer: Across the World and Back in Search of the Good Life. Affirm Books. 2017.
  • The Dictionary of Lost Words. Affirm Press. 2020.
  • The Bookbinder of Jericho. Affirm Press. 2023.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 Abadee, Nicole (2023). "What Pip did next". State Library of New South Wales. Retrieved 11 May 2024.
  2. 1 2 3 "Pip Williams". AustLit. 23 January 2020. Retrieved 11 May 2024. Source : Affirm Press website
  3. ↑ "Time Bomb: Work, rest and play in Australia today". UNSW Press. Retrieved 2 June 2026.
  4. 1 2 "Pip Williams". Matilda Bookshop (Interview). Retrieved 11 May 2024.
  5. 1 2 3 M., Daryl (19 April 2021). "Interview With an Author: Pip Williams". Los Angeles Public Library. Retrieved 2 June 2026.
  6. ↑ "Dalton, Pape, Bluey top Australian bestsellers 2020". Books+Publishing. 17 March 2021. Retrieved 23 March 2021.
  7. ↑ P, Joanne (15 April 2022). "The Dictionary of Lost Words, Review: Thought-provoking". Booklover Book Reviews. Retrieved 10 August 2022.
  8. ↑ Case, Jo (8 May 2020). "A few words in your ear about gender, dictionaries and kindness". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 23 March 2021.
  9. ↑ "'The Dictionary of Lost Words' cracks 100k". Books+Publishing. 18 January 2021. Retrieved 23 March 2021.
  10. ↑ "'Phosphorescence' wins 2021 ABIA Book of the Year". Books+Publishing. 28 April 2021. Retrieved 29 April 2021.
  11. ↑ "NSW Premier's Literary Awards 2021 shortlists announced". Books+Publishing. 24 March 2021. Retrieved 25 March 2021.
  12. ↑ "'The Dictionary of Lost Words' to be adapted for TV". Books+Publishing. 10 November 2022. Retrieved 14 November 2022.
  13. ↑ Keen, Suzie (18 October 2022). "Bestseller bound for Adelaide stage in State Theatre's 2023 season". InDaily. Retrieved 2 June 2026.
  14. ↑ Rabinovich, Irina (2 July 2025). "Jericho's Daughters: Feminist Historiography and Class Resistance in Pip Williams' The Bookbinder of Jericho". Humanities. 14 (7): 138. doi:10.3390/h14070138. ISSN 2076-0787.
  15. ↑ Steger, Jason (17 March 2023). "The Bookbinder of Jericho: Pip Williams opens a new page on the world of her bestselling novel". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 23 September 2023.
  16. ↑ "Australian Book Industry Award Winners 2024". ABIA. 9 May 2024. Retrieved 10 May 2024.
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