About LaKeshia
PC: Riley Glenn Photography
LaKeshia T. Williams is a Black American, Austin-based poet and speculative fiction writer whose work explores generational trauma and how identity is shaped by both ancestry and imagination. Her writings are grounded in the belief that the past, present, and future coexist and cultural storytelling offers a powerful framework for examining resilience and possibility in the Black community.
She is the author of Lavender Heart Tea; a self-published memoir of short stories and poems focused on healing and self-reclamation. Her broader body of work includes reflective essays and creative prose that bridge personal narrative with collective experience. Across genres, her writing prioritizes interiority, transformation, and the tension between inherited survival and chosen liberation.
Beyond her creative practice, LaKeshia is actively engaged in her local arts and literary community. She has served as a volunteer and collaborator with organizations such as Torch Literary Arts, Austin Public Library, and the Texas Book Festival and has participated as a reviewer and panelist for arts and cultural initiatives connected to the Mid-America Arts Alliance and Austin Arts, Culture, Music, and Entertainment. She is also a featured author of the upcoming 3rd Annual Greater Austin Book Festival. Through these roles and honors, she supports the development of inclusive creative spaces and the amplification of marginalized and underrepresented voices.
Her professional background in workforce development, education, and community engagement enhances her writings by offering a systems-level lens on how institutions, power, and history mold lived experience. This perspective allows her to examine generational trauma not only as an emotional inheritance, but as something reinforced by social structures and collective memory.
LaKeshia is currently querying a full-length speculative novel; the first in a trilogy of interconnected stand-alone works. It follows five young adults confronting inherited trauma, uncovering buried truths, and imagining futures shaped by intention rather than survival alone. Through this body of work, LaKeshia seeks to contribute to the evolving tradition of Black speculative fiction that honors the culture while insisting on healing, transformation, and self-actualization.