Poet, short story writer, and novelist Ian Williams was named one of "ten Canadian writers to watch out for" by CBC in 2018. His poetry has been shortlisted for the Griffin Poetry Prize and the Robert Kroetsch Poetry Book Award. He won the Danuta Gleed Literary Award for his short stories. Williams holds a Ph.D. in English from the University of Toronto and is currently an assistant professor of poetry in the Creative Writing program at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. Reproduction, his debut novel, was a finalist for the Amazon First Novel Prize, was a CBC Spring & Black History Month pick, and dubbed one of the "Buzziest Books of 2019" by Chatelaine Magazine.