Episode 20 – Amy Bennett Williams and Roger Williams

My guests today are TWO names well known to local readers and lovers of storytelling: Amy Bennett Williams AND Roger Williams. That’s right, we’re trying out our first twofer today on 3 Song Stories, so hang in there, here we go.

The beginning of Amy Bennett Williams’ short bio reads like the storyteller she is: she “came to The News-Press in 1988 as an ashtray-emptying, obituary-writing clerk-slash-reporter, then moved through a series of assignments at the paper, covering everything from cake contests to tuberculosis outbreaks.”

Amy left the paper for a while to edit Gulfshore Life Magazine before returning as its Lifestyles editor in 1998. These days she’s a feature writer and columnist. Her current job titles are watchdog and storyteller.

Amy lives in Alva with her writer husband, Roger, two sons and an ever-changing and well-documented menagerie.

And speaking of Roger, his short bio, unsurprisingly, also begins with a writer’s flourish: “Roger Williams was born long ago and far away west of the mighty ‘Mississippi’ River, an Indian name with fewer English letters (only 11) than the colossal ‘Caloosahatchee’ River, which contains 14.”

Roger moved to Florida in 1994 to work almost four years happily for The News- Press – especially happily after Amy agreed to marry him. (paraphrasing the bio now) He got an undergraduate degree from the University of Kansas, and a master’s from the Columbia University School of Journalism. These days he writes a column and feature stories for Florida Weekly.