Today we’d like to introduce you to Ina Williams.
Hi Ina, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
Wow! Asking a writer to sum up her life story, could be dangerous, but I will give it a shot. I was born and raised in Atlanta, Georgia specifically South West Atlanta. I went to Tri-Cities High School which is a visual and performing arts magnet school in East Point, and it was formative. I used to joke about how going there felt like finding my home planet. People who lived creatively 100% of the time, it was amazing. It was there that I met amazing teachers, like Dawn Axam, Robert Connor, and Freddie Hendricks. Freddie Hendricks then invited me to audition for his amazing theater company Youth Ensemble of Atlanta. Between Tri-Cities and YEA, I was beginning my 10,000 hours, as Malcolm Gladwell would say. I was writing songs and learning dance and musicality. I was learning how to take real-world issues and make them amazing hour-long musicals. I was becoming, in deeply profound ways. When I graduated from Tri-Cities I went on to the Savannah College of Art and Design. I was blessed enough to attend the Savannah campus and another major season of becoming began. My friends and I used to compare the city of Savannah to an incubator.
In terms of artistic growth, it was warm and safe and nurturing. I was learning about art in the context of other cultures. I was learning about history, I was building my tribe. And I was finding my identity and voice as an artist. I was a film and tv major, and I thought what almost every film and tv freshman thought, “I want to be a director.” In my junior year, I had a writing class and the professor was one of those really smart but pretty cynical former New York dwellers who always wore black and spent every class leaning back in a computer chair, like all the way back. In this one class, I finished reading an assignment and he sits up in the chair, which is already a big deal, and says, “Oh, so you’re a writer.” Hearing that sent this wave through me. It was like hearing something out loud that you felt you should have always known. I was 100 percent a writer, a storyteller, both then and now. I have treasured that professor and that moment ever since.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Definitely not. I think every road has obstacles and challenges because those are the things that teach us. I lost my mother just before graduating high school and it changed the shape of everything that came after. It meant I was an independent student entering college, and while I was by no means alone, I was moving through my first stages of adulthood with a bit of an emotional limp.
I also think about that scene from Creed a lot when I hear questions like this. Adonis is standing in the mirror shadowboxing and Rockie is behind him and tells him to throw a punch, Rockie asks what the reflection is doing and Adonis tells him the reflection is throwing one right back. I feel like I was arguably my biggest obstacle. My own hangups, issues, trauma, fears, doubt, my worries held me back. Those are the things that got in the way, I think looking back. Of course, there were all sorts of external microaggressions; sexism, racism, and ageism. They were all there. I may not have been able to recognize them at the time, but I could feel them, I absorbed them. Honestly, sometimes they even fed the fear and doubt and trauma triggers.
I think what I am learning now is to drag those things out into the light. Whether it is my stuff or someone else’s stuff they’re trying to put on me (after all that is really all isms are, someone else’s stuff). I’m trying to get better and being tender with myself. Cheering Ina on and advocating for her. Loving her just because.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
I am a storyteller. The medium doesn’t matter for me as long as there is a great story to tell. I have two albums out already Masterpiece and Before. I am about to release an EP called Begin sometime this fall. (check Spotify and iTunes). I have a series of short stories on Kindle Vella called The Merebe. I wrote a 15-minute 3-act play called The Thief that premiered as the first of the Role Call’s Atlanta Micro Theater productions. I had an amazing time working with a friend of mine Royce Bable on his one-of-a-kind one-man show Not Here Right Now which sold out its Atlanta Show and later earned a spot in the 2019 Hollywood Fringe Festival, where I directed the show’s 1-week run. But I would have to say I am most proud of my novella The House We Built. The book was like an imaginary friend that lived in my head for almost seven years. It was powerful to be able to bring that friend to life and to actually introduce the book to people. I love those characters and I love that story, so to find that others love them as I do means the world. I am so proud of the work I did with my editor Simone Adams, and I’m not done yet. I have plans to adapt the book into a screenplay. What sets me apart from others is my authenticity. I sincerely want to learn more about the world and people and love and God. My work and my stories are my way of trying to do just that.
Do you any memories from childhood that you can share with us?
My mom, dad, and I playing in the living room. Nothing, in particular, is happening, no major event, just us being together. It was nice.
Contact Info:
- Website: inawilliamscreative.com
- Instagram: @inawilliamscreative
- Twitter: @inawilliamscreative
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCm_5eS-MR6NEmwQmDGWYXKQ/about
- Other: https://jesusgirl.blog/
Image Credits
Headshots by Justin Jordan Club Hertz Photos by Nehemiah Wilson Candid by Ina Williams
