Clarence Williams

Though Trapped in the Cracks is my first complete work of fiction, I have been an ardent writer of prose and poetry for many years, and an avid reader, of everything from comics to classics, most of my life.

Like a weary horse to water, in times of despair, I have always found my way back to the banks of a clear flowing stream of woven words. As a young kid attempting to grow, seemingly in the midst of a storm, I sought distraction from the disheartening circumstances in which I was born. To maintain calm within as my world was whipped with wind, I wrote. I jotted drafts of short stories, and filled callouts with the dialogue of my imagined and illustrated characters in my own amateur comic books. As a child, outside of completing one of my many absorbing drawings, I rarely found a sincere reason to smile.

My adoration of beautifully crafted prose and poetry prompted me to sculpt my own inspiring works of art from the expressive clay of boundless words. When I unexpectedly won an essay contest as a sophomore, my potential for writing was realized. However, seldom truly restful, my youth was stressful. And, as a young adult, hastily penned poems became the therapeutic medicine that kept depression and stress at bay, as I repeated the lie that everything would be okay.

Though it is purely fiction pulled from my imagination, Trapped in the Cracks was greatly influenced by the experiences of friends, family members, neighbors, and myself, while growing up in Gary, Indiana in the ‘90s. This was a particularly dismal decade for the city. Through distribution, addiction or imprisonment, nearly every family was touched by crack cocaine or heroin. Some were rocked in all three ways, by both drugs. Ensuing gang struggles over territory and profit skyrocketed Gary’s per capita murder rate—at times exceeding that of major U.S. cities. My most enduring memories of this bleak period are of nights when the sheer volume of gun-fire was mind-bogglingly senseless; and seeing addicts—who to me, at a young age, looked like metamorphosing zombies—seemingly strewn like litter up and down stairwells, spilling in and out of homes and aimlessly drifting down dreary streets.

Besides spending much of my youth in the ghettos of Gary, other life experiences that influenced this work include three proud years of service in the U.S. Army; nearly two years of justly warranted, but definitely not regretted (For the many lessons the isolation and quiet allowed me to evaluate and learn about myself, life, and the world, at a time when, unbeknownst to me at twenty years of age, I actually understood so little.), incarceration; and nearly eighteen total months living in NYC homeless shelters. Through it all, I read.

Authors who have had a profound influence on me over the years include James Baldwin, Miguel de Cervantes, Ralph Ellison, Toni Morrison, George Orwell, James Patterson, Edgar Allen Poe, and Charles Saunders. Some of my favorite books of fiction are Don Quixote, The Pillars of the Earth, Invisible Man, Beloved, Home, Tar Baby, Sula, Animal Farm, 1984, Imaro, Kiss the Girls, Memoirs of a Geisha, The Coldest Winter Ever, The Alchemist, Angles and Demons, The Count of Monte Cristo, The Stand, Giovanni’s Room and Crime and Punishment, amongst many others.

My obsession with intricate rhyme schemes and alliteration came from reading the poetry of Edgar Allan Poe and General George S. Patton and listening on repeat to the verses of 2pac, AZ, Big Daddy Kane, Big L, Big Pun, Canibus, Common, Dead Prez, DMX, Eminem, Immortal Technique, Jadakiss, Kool G Rap, Nas, Papoose, Rakim, Scarface, The Notorious B.I.G., T.I. and Young Jeezy.

I was born and raised in Gary, Indiana. After seven years in the borough of Brooklyn, I relocated to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where I currently reside.