Charles Williams

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Charles Willeford left home to ride the rails during the Great Depression. Charles Williams went to sea instead, serving ten years as a radioman in the Merchant Marine. Later, when he became a writer, he put his nautical background to good use, with many of his best stories taking place at sea or in port. When on land, his stories were usually set in the rural South; as Geoffry O'Brien puts it, "When his characters talk about going to the big city they usually mean Shreveport."

Williams' fiction wasn't jam-packed with action like that of many of his contemporaries, but simmered with hidden conflicts that grew until they boiled over into sudden violence. Frequently the conflict featured a woman whose motives were unclear, sometimes even to herself. His heroes tended to be competent, even-tempered men, who got into tough situations against their better instincts.

A sensitive man who was unwilling to change with the demands of the marketplace and unable to face failure, Williams drowned himself in 1975.