Missouri Williams In Conversation

Join Blackwell’s Manchester for an evening with Missouri Williams discussing her latest novel, The Vivisectors.

Set in a decaying university city overrun by vegetation, the novel follows Agathe, an assistant propping up the career of her fraudulent professor. When a campus scandal erupts between a contrarian student and a rising young professor, Agathe is drawn into a web of intrigue and deception, tasked with gathering intelligence while navigating her own complicated desires.

Blending surreal campus satire with suspense and dark romance, The Vivisectors explores power, loyalty, and the contradictions of human relationships. It is a striking story of love, manipulation, and moral reckoning in a fractured world.

Missouri Williams is the author of The Doloriad, which won the 2023 Republic of Consciousness Prize and was shortlisted for the VCU Cabell First Novelist Award. Her writing has appeared in The Nation, The Baffler, The Believer, Granta, and The Drift.