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Glacia Cronk

Glacia Cronk (born December 6, 1984) is an American author, podcast host, and business owner. She is best known for her works of fiction, notably the Clockmaker Series.

Born in Syracuse, New York, Cronk spent over a decade as a professional equestrian before turning to writing after a brain injury. She has gained notoriety as a motivational speaker for those who have suffered brain injury.

Books

The Softwood Hour: A Lark Hendrix Novel (The Clockmaker Series Book 1)

The Cold Clock: A Lark Hendrix Novel (The Clockmaker Series Book 2)

The Aspen Sundial: A Lark Hendrix Novel (The Clockmaker Series Book 3)

Birth and Family

Glacia Cronk was born to working-class parents in Upstate New York in 1984. At an early age, she distinguished herself as an intellectually gifted child among her peers. Her science-loving, workaholic father fostered her sense of wonder and insatiable curiosity, as well as a compulsive drive to busy herself.

At age six, she began riding horses, and as many young girls do, she fell madly in love. Her childhood thereafter was equine-centric, even during the times when her family could not afford her hobby. By fifteen, she was working in "the industry" as a stall cleaner, but she rapidly assumed more and more complex responsibilities associated with the farm. At sixteen, she was managing the growing operation, including the breeding, training, and sales programs. Education was self-shunned, and she would only later discover the actual cost of her decision to focus her energy on the pursuit of a career as a horse trainer. In 2007, Glacia and her future husband moved to Georgia to assume the role of farm-manager and head trainer at a fifty-horse stable.

Over the course of the next ten years, she would distinguish herself in only minor ways, never achieving anything near the accolades of which she had once dreamed. Her impacts on the equestrian world remained local and personal, deeply touching the hearts and horses of a few special people, and she came to find purpose in her abilities as an instructor and comfort with her place in the crowd.

On March 4, 2018, Glacia Cronk mounted, and everything changed.

The arena was familiar. The horse was familiar. The client was familiar. The conversation was familiar. But the ground came up hard and fast.

Diagnosed with a coup-contrecoup contusion, a severe form of concussion, with associated secondary epilepsy, Glacia was left handicapped, unemployed, and isolated. After tallying the long list of head injuries over her tenure in the industry and accounting for the damage that her brain had sustained, her neurologist advised that her proverbial spurs be hung.

Rapidly realizing that her entire identity was embodied in her roles as income-earner and horse-trainer, she fell into an acute episode of depression, anxiety, and mania. Headaches, anterograde amnesia, and weakness plagued her as the psychological effects of the injury unraveled her mind.

Six months after the injury, still experiencing secondary symptoms, still not feeling like herself, still struggling with identity, she revisited her doctor for further tests. MRIs, EEGs, rechecks of eyes and ears and neck and spine all yielded the same response: You are well. Perhaps not like you were before, but you are well.

The diagnosis of "well" became more and more frustrating with each repetition. There has to be a reason, she thought, a reason why I don't feel well.

There was a reason, indeed. Upon application of neuropsychological testing, it was discovered that Cronk possessed an IQ in the 99th percentile without the memory to match it. Now she had her answer. Her "well" was vastly different from what her doctor had been calling "well."

The discovery gave her a new perspective on her life, though it wasn't improved. Now she was plagued with guilt for wasting her gifts. She had known they were there! But she had always neglected them in favor of developing a career which would ultimately self-destruct before it had been realized.

Lost and lonely, without purpose or passion, she began to write.