Paul Osborne Williams was an American author, best known for his science fiction and fantasy books. He is particularly renowned for his Pelbar Cycle series, which is set in a post-apocalyptic North America approximately a thousand years after a catastrophic event known as the "time of fire." The world has nearly been depopulated, and the series chronicles the gradual reconnection of human cultures that have developed in isolation. The majority of the action in the Pelbar Cycle takes place along the Upper Mississippi River, in an area close to Elsah, Illinois, where Williams spent a significant portion of his career as a professor emeritus of English at Principia College.
Williams was not only a prolific science fiction writer but also a respected haiku poet. His work in the haiku form includes not only the creation of haiku, senryū, and tanka but also the writing of numerous essays on the haiku form in English. In fact, he is credited with coining the term "tontoism" in a 1975 essay, which he used to describe the practice of writing haiku with missing articles, such as "the," "a," or "an." Williams was a prominent figure in the haiku community, serving as the president of the Haiku Society of America in 1999 and as the vice president of the Tanka Society of America in 2000. He passed away on June 2, 2009, leaving behind a significant body of work in both science fiction and haiku poetry.