Meet Maria Williams
Hi, I’m Maria. I’m married to my favorite human, raising two amazing boys, and living proof that midlife is not a crisis. It’s a comeback! After nearly two decades of teaching, I traded in lesson plans for life lessons and discovered that writing my own book was the best kind of classroom.
I didn’t set out to become an “author.” What I did set out to do was stop shrinking myself to fit into society’s boxes. So, I wrote The Pretty Truth—part pep talk, part permission slip, and part confetti cannon aimed at society’s rule book.
I believe in bangs before Botox, rest before hustle, and coffee before almost everything else. I believe confidence is the real glow-up and that laugh lines are proof of a life well-lived. Most of all, I believe women don’t need fixing. We all need freedom to be who we want.
When I’m not writing or cheering on women like you, you can find me hanging with my husband, driving my boys everywhere, or sipping coffee like it’s my love language. If you’ve ever wanted a hype-girl bestie who tells it like it is (with a side of sarcasm), you’ve found her.
Meet Mrs. Williams
Before the books and the writing, there was a classroom. For nineteen years, I showed up with lesson plans in one hand and a full heart in the other. I spent nine years in first grade and later worked in special education across multiple grade levels, learning quickly that teaching is never just about curriculum. It’s about people.
I was the teacher who stayed late, celebrated small wins like championships, and sometimes sat in my car after dismissal just to breathe. I learned how to manage chaos, calm big emotions, and love deeply even on the hardest days.
Some of the most valued people in my life came from those hallways. We formed a friendship bond like nothing you could ever imagine because those women understood the exhaustion, the humor, the weight, and the joy of the work. Those bonds shaped me just as much as the classroom did.
Those nineteen years didn’t just make me a teacher. They shaped every page of The Pretty Truth About Education. Not from theory, but from lived experience.
I may not be in Room 105 anymore, but it looks like my classroom just got a little bigger. The teacher part of me never left.
And it never will.