I am Terrence CJ Williams Sr., 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. I was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, and later moved with my family to Staten Island, where I completed my public-school education through New York City’s academic and vocational programs, including automotive engineering.

My dedication to medicine and counseling began early. While I was still in high school, a mentor introduced me to emergency medical service. That introduction placed me on the path to becoming an Emergency Medical Technician and later an EMT-Paramedic. That calling to care for people in crisis eventually led me into the United States Navy, where I 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. My military service, medical training, deployments, and time with Marines shaped my understanding of duty, discipline, sacrifice, trauma, resilience, and the quiet strength people carry under pressure.

Before I entered the Navy, I 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 my lifelong commitment to mentorship, leadership, and service.

After my military service, I continued my education through Empire State College, now Empire State University, part of the State University of New York system, where I earned my bachelor’s degree. I 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. I also earned a Doctor of Ministry from Newburgh Theological Seminary and College of Bible while serving as a pastor in Staten Island.

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

My commitment to youth counseling and ministry was shaped not only by education and professional training, but also by personal experience. As a young man, I 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 me a lasting sensitivity to young people who feel unseen, unheard, or misjudged. It became one of the reasons I gravitated toward counseling, school leadership, ministry, and stories centered on emotional truth.

I 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. My work placed me directly in the lives of young people facing discipline, hardship, redirection, and second chances. That experience deepened my belief in mentorship, accountability, and the power of seeing potential where others may only see trouble.

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

For me, writing is not only about placing words on a page. It is about bringing the stories in my 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.