williams received a b.a. from the university at albany, suny in 2003 and an m.a. in creative writing in 2005 from rivier university. after traveling abroad for three years, he moved to portland, oregon in 2009 and earned his m.a. in book publishing from portland state university. there he worked as acquisitions manager of ooligan press at portland state university and was instrumental in the production of the "alive at the center", the pacific poetry project’s first volume poetry anthology.