Ben Ames Williams
| Ben Ames Williams | |
|---|---|
| Born | March 7, 1889 Macon, Mississippi, U.S. |
| Died | February 4, 1953 |
| Occupation | Writer |
| Nationality | United States |
Ben Ames Williams (March 7, 1889 – February 4, 1953) was an accomplished American novelist and short story writer; he wrote hundreds of short stories and over thirty novels during the course of his life. Among his novels are Come Spring (1940), Leave Her to Heaven (1944) House Divided (1947), and The Unconquered (1953). He was published in many magazines, but the majority of his stories appeared in the pages of the Saturday Evening Post.
Williams was born in Macon, Mississippi to Daniel Webster Williams and Sarah Marshall Ames on March 7, 1889.
Just after his birth, he and his parents moved to Jackson, Ohio. As his father was owner and editor of the Jackson Standard Journal, he grew up around writing, printing, and editing. In high school he worked for the Journal, doing grunt work in the beginning and eventually writing and editing. He attended Dartmouth College and upon graduation in 1910 was offered a job teaching English at a boys school in Connecticut. He telegraphed his father seeking career advice, but his handwriting was terrible and his father mistook “teaching” for “traveling” and, not wanting his son to become a travelling businessman, advised him not to take the job. Richard Cary says it later saved Williams from “a purgatory of grading endless, immature English ‘themes’” and propelled him “toward a career as one of the most popular storytellers of his time
After graduation he took a job reporting for the Boston American. Williams worked hard reporting for the local newspaper, but only did this for income; his heart lay with magazine fiction. Each night he worked on his fiction writing with the aspiration that one day, his stories would be able to support himself, his wife, Florence Talpey, and their children, Roger, Ben, and Penelope.
Williams first publications were The Wings of 'Lias in Smith's Magazine in July 1915, and on August 23, 1915 in The Popular Magazine with his short story, Deep Stuff. After that his popularity slowly grew. On April 14, 1917, the Saturday Evening Post picked up one of Williams' stories, The Mate of the Susie Oakes. Richard Cary has highlighted the privilege of being printed in the pages of this mammoth magazine: “The Saturday Evening Post represented an Olympus of a sort to him and his contemporaries. To be gathered into its pantheon of authors, to be accepted three or five or eight (and eventually twenty-one) times in a year constituted a seal of approval and a personal vindication,””and it certainly helped his career. He published 135 short stories, 35 serials, and 7 articles for the Post during a period of 24 years. After the Post took him, other magazines began eagerly seeking Williams to submit his fiction to their magazines.
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