Today we’d like to introduce you to Brittany Élyse Williams.
Hi Brittany, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
I’ve been telling stories about people, animals and inanimate objects for as long as I can remember. After high school, I went to Fort Valley State University and got a degree in English Literature, and loved it so much I went on to graduate school at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, where I also studied English. I turned 23 the summer after getting my master’s and wasn’t really sure what I wanted to do — everyone pretty much expected me to teach.
As the daughter of a teacher, I grew up loving to read and write and learn, but I didn’t feel like teaching professionally was really for me. After some long stints of unemployment, underemployment, and just undesired/unfulfilling work, I was watching TV with my mom one day and during a commercial, I thought, “I wonder how you get a job coming up with ideas for commercials?” So I looked it up, and low and behold, the beautiful world of copywriting was discovered. And oh, my two degrees in English were actually right in line with the preferred qualifications of most copywriting positions, as was journalism, which I’d gained experience in as the copy editor and later, editor-in-chief of the FVSU newspaper. I couldn’t believe people would actually pay me to do something I loved — tell stories.
I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey have been a fairly smooth road?
It hasn’t been a smooth road at all. There were several challenges along the way, and there continue to be challenges even now. When I first started working as a professional writer, I only knew about technical writing jobs or communications jobs, which seemed a lot more stuffy and less fun. I wanted to be more creative. So, when I discovered copywriting, I had to change almost everything about how I was marketing myself for jobs. I revamped my resume, I created a creative portfolio which was mostly work that I’d created on my own, not from any actual job I’d had. I was up until 3-4 a.m. most days working on my portfolio to better position myself as a creative.
My first book was literally a PDF document (mostly word docs turned PDFs) and a few sample writings from a magazine I was freelancing for. BUT, it was enough to get me in the door at a small direct-response marketing shop, right down the street from one of my favorite breweries. It was some of the hardest work I’d ever done in my life, but it was also some of the most rewarding. I often never felt like my work was good enough and didn’t even know what I was doing a lot of the time, but I kept going until it started to feel right and eventually, I started getting better feedback on my work. After a couple of months there, I felt ready to start my career in corporate advertising copywriting. A couple of years later, I got the itch to have my own thing outside of work too, and that’s when I decided to create Written Works House, a boutique publishing firm specializing in copywriting, editing and proofreading.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I’ve worked for both small and large companies as a copywriter, and it’s been quite rewarding and fun. However, especially when working for larger organizations, the work can become somewhat monotonous at times, so that’s why I like to always have other fulfilling projects outside of my bread and butter 9-5 gig. Written Works House was my first attempt at turning freelancing into a legit business. I set up the LLC, I did the research, I hired social media help, had my website built, but it still took a while for me to get clientele. My business has mostly been word of mouth, and doing resumes is what really helped me keep some semi-steady income coming in. I’d like to do more work helping other black creatives get into this field because there are so few of us in these spaces, and I think a lot of organizations can benefit greatly from having our voices and our talent in the room.
Outside of copywriting, I’m also the contributing editor for Neu Neu Magazine, a New York-based fashion publication that focuses solely on creatives of color lead by Editor-in-Chief Alexis Barnett. It’s been one of the most rewarding experiences I’ve had creatively and each issue I’ve worked on has consistently gotten better and better. I also dabble in scriptwriting. I took a class with Oreathia C. Smith, screenplay teacher extraordinaire, and fell in love with it. Oreathia’s also the person who drug me to my first improv class at Dad’s Garage here in Atlanta, and I fell in love with it also! I can’t wait to get back to improv once we’re all cleared for such activities again. In the meantime, I started a podcast called “2 Bees In The Trap” with one of my good friends, who was also an English major and fellow Fort Valley State grad, Brittney Menchion. Our purpose in creating this podcast was to show how vast the spectrum is when it comes to black intellectuals, and we thought it’d be a cool concept to blend black intellectualism with a Lil ratchetness. We talk about real-life issues and current events from the perspective of two intelligent, black women who find themselves somewhere between the board rooms of corporate America and the trap house (In other words, we can discuss people like Chaucer and Chief Keef in the same convo).
Is there anything else you’d like to share with our readers?
I believe anything is possible if you believe! Let your intuition be your guiding light, and always seek to learn, grow and inspire others to keep going. We need more stories like yours.
Contact Info:
- Email: brittany@writtenworks.co
- Website: writtenworks.co
- Instagram: @writtenworkshouse
- Other: https://linktr.ee/2beesinthetrap
