Absolutely, Terrence. That belongs in the bio because it gives the **emotional root** of your work. Not just the résumé. The reason. And that matters, because otherwise a bio becomes a polite list of credentials wearing a necktie.

Here is the revised version with that woven in naturally.

## Revised Author Bio

**Terrence CJ Williams Sr.** is an African American author, retired educator, licensed New York State mental health therapist, U.S. Navy veteran, former Hospital Corpsman, EMT-Paramedic, pastor, husband, father, and lifelong storyteller. Born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, he later moved with his family to Staten Island, where he completed his public-school education through New York City’s academic and vocational programs, including automotive engineering.

His dedication to medicine and counseling began early. While in high school, a mentor introduced him to emergency medical service, setting him on the path to becoming an Emergency Medical Technician and later an EMT-Paramedic. That calling to care for people in crisis eventually led him into the United States Navy, where he trained as a Hospital Corpsman and served at Patuxent River Naval Air Station before being assigned to Camp Lejeune with the United States Marine Corps, 2nd Force Service Support Group. His military service, medical training, deployments, and time with Marines shaped his understanding of duty, discipline, sacrifice, trauma, resilience, and the quiet strength people carry under pressure.

Before entering the Navy, Terrence developed an early love for military structure and service through Richmond Cadets Incorporated, the Boy Scouts, Sea Explorers, and later as a military instructor with a newly established high school ROTC program at Curtis High School in Staten Island. Those experiences helped form the foundation for his lifelong commitment to mentorship, leadership, and service.

After military service, Terrence continued his education through Empire State College, now Empire State University, part of the State University of New York system, where he earned his bachelor’s degree. He later earned two master’s degrees from Mercy College, now Mercy University, one in counseling from the Dobbs Ferry campus and another in school leadership from the Manhattan campus. He also earned a Doctor of Ministry from Newburgh Theological Seminary and College of Bible while serving as a pastor in Staten Island.

Terrence is a licensed New York State mental health therapist, with a professional specialty in juvenile counseling and school counseling. His counseling work also extends through his ministry, where he provided spiritual and pastoral counseling during his years of service. Though now retired from active practice, his training and experience continue to inform the emotional depth, family dynamics, and human complexity found in his fiction.

His commitment to youth counseling and ministry was shaped not only by education and professional training, but by personal experience. As a young man, Terrence often felt misunderstood while growing up in a stricter era, when children were expected to obey, stay quiet, and speak only when spoken to. That early experience gave him a lasting sensitivity to young people who feel unseen, unheard, or misjudged. It became one of the reasons he gravitated toward counseling, school leadership, ministry, and stories centered on emotional truth.

Terrence spent twenty-one years serving students and families in the New York City public school system, beginning as a paraprofessional and rising through the ranks to educational associate, guidance counselor, and interim acting assistant principal with the Brooklyn West Alternative Learning Center. His work placed him directly in the lives of young people facing discipline, hardship, redirection, and second chances. That experience deepened his belief in mentorship, accountability, and the power of seeing potential where others may only see trouble.

Now retired and living in South Carolina with his wife and family, Terrence has found a renewed spark in storytelling. His writing draws from a life shaped by medicine, military service, education, counseling, ministry, fatherhood, community, discipline, and survival. He writes contemporary African American fiction centered on family legacy, romance, emotional healing, loyalty, humor, and the complicated beauty of love under pressure.

For Terrence, writing is not only about placing words on a page. It is about bringing the stories in his mind to life, giving voice to characters who feel real, and creating books that honor resilience, Black love, family, service, second chances, and the joy of beginning again.