Lauren Lee Williams reclaimed her middle name when she became a songwriter. That was about 7 years ago. For 20 years prior to that she was pretty well known as Lauren Williams, poet. Her last published book was Invisible Tattoos, Five Islands Press, 2000. Her next (4th) collection, Cleanskin Poems, is complete but, like most Australian poetry, is waiting for a publisher. Lauren, however, is not. Last year she won the Roddy Read Memorial Songwriting Competition at the Maldon Folk Festival, and this year she won the Capital News/Tamworth Songwriters Association New Songwriter Award. She has recently returned from her second visit to the United States, funded by the Australia Council, where she won a place in the folk song competition at the Galax Old Fiddlers Convention, in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. Back home, she will be performing at this year’s Maldon Folk Festival in October, and at the Harrietville Bluegrass & Old Time Music Convention in November.