Williams was raised in Rosemount, Minnesota,[2][3][4] where her father, Les, was a middle school math teacher.

[citation needed] Williams attended the University of Minnesota and after she took a screen-writing course there, her teacher encouraged her to move to California to find work.

[2] She occasionally provided voices for the show, including that of Amber Dempsey, a single-episode character from "Lisa the Beauty Queen".

She stayed for three seasons and wrote the screenplay Dairy Queens which was retitled and released in 1999 as Drop Dead Gorgeous.

[2][8] She also wrote the original script for the 2001 film Sugar & Spice (on which she is credited under the pseudonym Mandy Nelson).