William Abrahams

William Abrahams (1919 - 1998) was an American poet, author, and editor. His literary career spanned a wide array of disciplines including poetry, novels, biographies, non-fiction books, and editing short stories and novels. He presided over the O Henry Awards for best short stories from 1965 to 1996; awarding the best short story in the nation as well as editing and curating the yearly anthology of O Henry nominated short stories. In his role with the awards, Robert McG. Thomas Jr. lauded Abrahams as "almost single-handidly preserving the short story as a viable genre."

Abrahams began his career writing poetry. He wrote four novels including Interval in Carolina (1945), By the Beautiful Sea (1947), and Imperial Waltz (1954). In 1968, he moved to Northern California to become the West-Coast editor for the Atlantic Monthly Press. Stansky and Abrahams also authored a two volume biography of George Orwell, The Unknown Orwell (1972) and Orwell: The Transformation (1980), with both books being finalists for the National Book Award in the biography category.

Abrahams grew up in Boston, Massachusetts graduated from Harvard University. He also studied writing at Stanford University.