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Patricia Aya Williams grew up in San Jose, California, daughter of a Japanese-born mother and an American father. She is a graduate of San José State University, where she earned both a BA in humanities with a minor in Japanese and a master’s in library and information sciences. She enjoyed two diverse careers: first as a flight attendant, second as a public librarian.

She is the author of the mini-chap Haiku for Parents (Origami Poems Project, 2020) and the chapbook Failure Goddess (Dancing Girl Press, 2026). Her poem “Ichiban” won the Red Wheelbarrow Poetry Prize 3rd Place in 2022, judged by Juan Felipe Herrera, and another poem, “Abilene,” received a Steve Kowit Poetry Prize Honorable Mention.

Her poems are published in or forthcoming from many journals, including Whale Road Review, Sheila-Na-Gig, Jackdaw Review, Bicoastal Review, Dunes Review, Molecule, and Cæsura. She has work forthcoming in the Tupelo Press anthology The Writes of Spring and the Pangyrus anthology A Table to Hold the World.

Ichiban was a finalist in the 2025 Swan Scythe Press Chapbook Contest and, in its fulllength form, is the winner of the 2025 Concrete Wolf Louis Award.

She lives in San Diego, California, with her husband, Christopher, and dog, Binxy Elton.

Umeboshi

Pickled and puckered—each plum
a fortune cookie message stashed
in sticky clouds of onigiri. You loved
the salty sting on your tongue, taught me
to love it, too. Sweetness made you
suspicious—it was bound to disappoint.

Shō ga nai, ne…

Rolling the rice balls, your hands
made sourness a delicacy.
We put faith in that flavor,
that fullness—more than words.
It was everything
we couldn’t say, wrapped in nori.
                

$19.99

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1st Runner-Up

Finalists (alphabetical by poet’s last name)

Honorable Mentions