Memoirs of a 90s' School Boy

Memoirs of a 90s' School Boy

Author: Michael Sleggs

Publisher: Austin Macauley

Published: 2020-06-30

Total Pages: 134

ISBN-13: 9781528934077

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An entertaining and irreverent read, Memoirs of a 90s' School Boy is a book that'll bring you back in time to childhood and the ups and downs of primary school days. The ridiculous situations, elaborate observations, and honest brain farts of a child who thinks he's got it sussed; will make you laugh out loud. Described by BAFTA award winning comedian, Daisy Cooper (the force behind BBC3's 'This Country') as 'the funniest thing she has ever read'. This book needs no further introduction, just get on and read it and see for yourself.


Book Synopsis Memoirs of a 90s' School Boy by : Michael Sleggs

Download or read book Memoirs of a 90s' School Boy written by Michael Sleggs and published by Austin Macauley. This book was released on 2020-06-30 with total page 134 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An entertaining and irreverent read, Memoirs of a 90s' School Boy is a book that'll bring you back in time to childhood and the ups and downs of primary school days. The ridiculous situations, elaborate observations, and honest brain farts of a child who thinks he's got it sussed; will make you laugh out loud. Described by BAFTA award winning comedian, Daisy Cooper (the force behind BBC3's 'This Country') as 'the funniest thing she has ever read'. This book needs no further introduction, just get on and read it and see for yourself.


Boys Keep Swinging

Boys Keep Swinging

Author: Jake Shears

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2018-02-20

Total Pages: 336

ISBN-13: 1501140140

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In this “exhilarating yet poignant account of one boy taking flight” (Shelf Awareness, starred review), one of rock music's most entrancing figures transforms the vividness of his musical world into an unforgettable literary account of overcoming the odds and finding his true voice. Long before hitting the stage as the lead singer of the iconic glam rock band Scissor Sisters, Jake Shears was Jason Sellards, a teenage boy living a fraught life, resulting in a difficult time in high school as his classmates bullied him and few teachers showed sympathy. It wasn’t until years later, while living and studying in New York City, that Jason would find his voice as an artist and, with a group of friends and musicians who were also thirsting for stardom and freedom, form the band Scissor Sisters. First performing in the smoky gay nightclubs of New York, then finding massive success in the United Kingdom, Scissor Sisters would become revered by the LGBTQ community, sell out venues worldwide, and win multiple accolades with hits like “Take Your Mama” and “I Don’t Feel Like Dancin’,” as well as their cult-favorite cover of Pink Floyd’s “Comfortably Numb.” “Brutally honest” (Elton John), candid, and courageous, Shears’s writing sings with the same powerful, spirited presence that he brings to his live performances. Boys Keep Swinging is “a wild, sexy, emotional ride through underground New York at the millennium. From the fringes to the top, it's a tale that speaks to the outsider in all of us” (Andy Cohen).


Book Synopsis Boys Keep Swinging by : Jake Shears

Download or read book Boys Keep Swinging written by Jake Shears and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2018-02-20 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this “exhilarating yet poignant account of one boy taking flight” (Shelf Awareness, starred review), one of rock music's most entrancing figures transforms the vividness of his musical world into an unforgettable literary account of overcoming the odds and finding his true voice. Long before hitting the stage as the lead singer of the iconic glam rock band Scissor Sisters, Jake Shears was Jason Sellards, a teenage boy living a fraught life, resulting in a difficult time in high school as his classmates bullied him and few teachers showed sympathy. It wasn’t until years later, while living and studying in New York City, that Jason would find his voice as an artist and, with a group of friends and musicians who were also thirsting for stardom and freedom, form the band Scissor Sisters. First performing in the smoky gay nightclubs of New York, then finding massive success in the United Kingdom, Scissor Sisters would become revered by the LGBTQ community, sell out venues worldwide, and win multiple accolades with hits like “Take Your Mama” and “I Don’t Feel Like Dancin’,” as well as their cult-favorite cover of Pink Floyd’s “Comfortably Numb.” “Brutally honest” (Elton John), candid, and courageous, Shears’s writing sings with the same powerful, spirited presence that he brings to his live performances. Boys Keep Swinging is “a wild, sexy, emotional ride through underground New York at the millennium. From the fringes to the top, it's a tale that speaks to the outsider in all of us” (Andy Cohen).


Stand Before Your God

Stand Before Your God

Author: Paul Watkins

Publisher: Vintage

Published: 2010-09-29

Total Pages: 256

ISBN-13: 0307765660

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In this enthralling and sometimes harrowing memoir, the acclaimed author of The Promise of Light gives us a masterly companion to such classics as Brideshead Revisited and A Separate Peace. At the age of seven, Paul Watkins was roughly transplanted from his home in Rhode Island to England's Dragon School. He was greeted by a delegation of bullies who, in time, would become his friends and whose rules would become his own. For at Dragon, and later at Eton, "there was no middle ground. You could not go here and come out not caring one way or the other. You had to stand before your God and commit." Here are the masters who paddle boys for small infractions and then offer them sweets; the seniors who pamper pretty favorites and subject all others to humiliating servitude; the deep friendships and sudden, devastating betrayals. Above all, here is the exhilaration of a boy discovering own capacities for learning and creativity, in a book that conveys with astonishing insight the pangs of growing up.


Book Synopsis Stand Before Your God by : Paul Watkins

Download or read book Stand Before Your God written by Paul Watkins and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2010-09-29 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this enthralling and sometimes harrowing memoir, the acclaimed author of The Promise of Light gives us a masterly companion to such classics as Brideshead Revisited and A Separate Peace. At the age of seven, Paul Watkins was roughly transplanted from his home in Rhode Island to England's Dragon School. He was greeted by a delegation of bullies who, in time, would become his friends and whose rules would become his own. For at Dragon, and later at Eton, "there was no middle ground. You could not go here and come out not caring one way or the other. You had to stand before your God and commit." Here are the masters who paddle boys for small infractions and then offer them sweets; the seniors who pamper pretty favorites and subject all others to humiliating servitude; the deep friendships and sudden, devastating betrayals. Above all, here is the exhilaration of a boy discovering own capacities for learning and creativity, in a book that conveys with astonishing insight the pangs of growing up.


Bad Kid

Bad Kid

Author: David Crabb

Publisher: HarperCollins

Published: 2015-05-19

Total Pages: 227

ISBN-13: 0062371290

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From comedian, storyteller, and The Moth host David Crabb, comes a music-filled, coming-of-age memoir about growing up gay and Goth in San Antonio, Texas. In the summer of 1989, three Goth kids crossed a street in San Antonio. They had no idea that a deeply confused fourteen-year-old boy was watching. Their dyed hair, fishnets, and eyeliner were his first evidence of another world—a place he desperately wanted to go. He just had no idea how to get there. Somehow David Crabb had convinced himself that every guy preferred French-braiding his girlfriend’s hair to making out, and that the funny feelings he got watching Silver Spoons and Growing Pains had nothing to do with Ricky Schroeder or Kirk Cameron. But discovering George Michael’s Faith confirmed for David what every bully already knew: he was gay. Surviving high school, with its gym classes, locker rooms, and naked, glistening senior guys, would require impossible feats of denial. What saved him was finding a group of outlandish friends who reveled in being outsiders. David found himself enmeshed with misfits: wearing black, cutting class, staying out all night, drinking, tripping, chain-smoking, idolizing The Smiths, Pet Shop Boys, and Joy Division—and learning lessons about life and love along the way. Richly detailed with 80s pop-culture, and including black and white photos throughout, BAD KID is as laugh-out-loud funny as it is poignant. Crabb’s journey through adolescence captures the essence of every person’s struggle to understand his or her true self.


Book Synopsis Bad Kid by : David Crabb

Download or read book Bad Kid written by David Crabb and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2015-05-19 with total page 227 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From comedian, storyteller, and The Moth host David Crabb, comes a music-filled, coming-of-age memoir about growing up gay and Goth in San Antonio, Texas. In the summer of 1989, three Goth kids crossed a street in San Antonio. They had no idea that a deeply confused fourteen-year-old boy was watching. Their dyed hair, fishnets, and eyeliner were his first evidence of another world—a place he desperately wanted to go. He just had no idea how to get there. Somehow David Crabb had convinced himself that every guy preferred French-braiding his girlfriend’s hair to making out, and that the funny feelings he got watching Silver Spoons and Growing Pains had nothing to do with Ricky Schroeder or Kirk Cameron. But discovering George Michael’s Faith confirmed for David what every bully already knew: he was gay. Surviving high school, with its gym classes, locker rooms, and naked, glistening senior guys, would require impossible feats of denial. What saved him was finding a group of outlandish friends who reveled in being outsiders. David found himself enmeshed with misfits: wearing black, cutting class, staying out all night, drinking, tripping, chain-smoking, idolizing The Smiths, Pet Shop Boys, and Joy Division—and learning lessons about life and love along the way. Richly detailed with 80s pop-culture, and including black and white photos throughout, BAD KID is as laugh-out-loud funny as it is poignant. Crabb’s journey through adolescence captures the essence of every person’s struggle to understand his or her true self.


Sleepaway School

Sleepaway School

Author: Lee Stringer

Publisher: Seven Stories Press

Published: 2011-01-04

Total Pages: 204

ISBN-13: 1583229779

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Like his brother before him, Stringer was surrendered to foster care, shortly after birth, by his unwed and underemployed mother—a common practice for unmarried women in mid-century America. Less common was that she returned six years later to reclaim her children. Rather than leading to a happy ending, though, this is where Stringer's story begins. The clash of being poor and black in an affluent, largely white New York suburb begins to foment pain and rage which erupts, more often than not, when he is at school. One violent episode results in his expulsion from the sixth grade and his subsequent three-year stint at Hawthorne, the "sleepaway school" of the title. What follows is an intensely personal, American journey: a universal story of childhood where childhood universals are absent. We experience how a child fashions his life out of the materials given to him, however threadbare. This is a "boy-meets-world" story, the chronicle of one child’s struggle simply to be.


Book Synopsis Sleepaway School by : Lee Stringer

Download or read book Sleepaway School written by Lee Stringer and published by Seven Stories Press. This book was released on 2011-01-04 with total page 204 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Like his brother before him, Stringer was surrendered to foster care, shortly after birth, by his unwed and underemployed mother—a common practice for unmarried women in mid-century America. Less common was that she returned six years later to reclaim her children. Rather than leading to a happy ending, though, this is where Stringer's story begins. The clash of being poor and black in an affluent, largely white New York suburb begins to foment pain and rage which erupts, more often than not, when he is at school. One violent episode results in his expulsion from the sixth grade and his subsequent three-year stint at Hawthorne, the "sleepaway school" of the title. What follows is an intensely personal, American journey: a universal story of childhood where childhood universals are absent. We experience how a child fashions his life out of the materials given to him, however threadbare. This is a "boy-meets-world" story, the chronicle of one child’s struggle simply to be.


Stay True

Stay True

Author: Hua Hsu

Publisher: Anchor

Published: 2023-09-12

Total Pages: 209

ISBN-13: 0593315200

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PULITZER PRIZE WINNER • A gripping memoir on friendship, grief, the search for self, and the solace that can be found through art, by the New Yorker staff writer Hua Hsu “This book is exquisite and excruciating and I will be thinking about it for years and years to come.” —Rachel Kushner, New York Times bestselling author of The Flamethrowers and The Mars Room In the eyes of eighteen-year-old Hua Hsu, the problem with Ken—with his passion for Dave Matthews, Abercrombie & Fitch, and his fraternity—is that he is exactly like everyone else. Ken, whose Japanese American family has been in the United States for generations, is mainstream; for Hua, the son of Taiwanese immigrants, who makes ’zines and haunts Bay Area record shops, Ken represents all that he defines himself in opposition to. The only thing Hua and Ken have in common is that, however they engage with it, American culture doesn’t seem to have a place for either of them. But despite his first impressions, Hua and Ken become friends, a friendship built on late-night conversations over cigarettes, long drives along the California coast, and the successes and humiliations of everyday college life. And then violently, senselessly, Ken is gone, killed in a carjacking, not even three years after the day they first meet. Determined to hold on to all that was left of one of his closest friends—his memories—Hua turned to writing. Stay True is the book he’s been working on ever since. A coming-of-age story that details both the ordinary and extraordinary, Stay True is a bracing memoir about growing up, and about moving through the world in search of meaning and belonging.


Book Synopsis Stay True by : Hua Hsu

Download or read book Stay True written by Hua Hsu and published by Anchor. This book was released on 2023-09-12 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: PULITZER PRIZE WINNER • A gripping memoir on friendship, grief, the search for self, and the solace that can be found through art, by the New Yorker staff writer Hua Hsu “This book is exquisite and excruciating and I will be thinking about it for years and years to come.” —Rachel Kushner, New York Times bestselling author of The Flamethrowers and The Mars Room In the eyes of eighteen-year-old Hua Hsu, the problem with Ken—with his passion for Dave Matthews, Abercrombie & Fitch, and his fraternity—is that he is exactly like everyone else. Ken, whose Japanese American family has been in the United States for generations, is mainstream; for Hua, the son of Taiwanese immigrants, who makes ’zines and haunts Bay Area record shops, Ken represents all that he defines himself in opposition to. The only thing Hua and Ken have in common is that, however they engage with it, American culture doesn’t seem to have a place for either of them. But despite his first impressions, Hua and Ken become friends, a friendship built on late-night conversations over cigarettes, long drives along the California coast, and the successes and humiliations of everyday college life. And then violently, senselessly, Ken is gone, killed in a carjacking, not even three years after the day they first meet. Determined to hold on to all that was left of one of his closest friends—his memories—Hua turned to writing. Stay True is the book he’s been working on ever since. A coming-of-age story that details both the ordinary and extraordinary, Stay True is a bracing memoir about growing up, and about moving through the world in search of meaning and belonging.


Poseur

Poseur

Author: Marc Spitz

Publisher: Da Capo Press

Published: 2013-02-12

Total Pages: 370

ISBN-13: 0306821753

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Marc Spitz assumed that if he lived like his literary and rock 'n' roll heroes, he would become a great artist, too. He conveniently overlooked the fact that many of them died young, broke, and miserable. In his candid, wistful, touching, and hilarious memoir, Poseur, the music journalist, playwright, author, and blogger recounts his misspent years as a suburban kid searching for authenticity, dangerous fun, and druggy, downtown glory: first during New York's last era of risk and edge, the pre-gentrification '90s, and finally as a flamboyant and notorious rock writer, partying and posing during the music industry's heady, decadent last gasp. Part profane, confidential tell-all and part sweetly frank coming-of-age tale, this dirty, witty memoir finds Spitz careening through the scene, meeting and sometimes clashing with cultural icons like Courtney Love, Jeff Buckley, Rivers Cuomo of Weezer, Chloëevigny, Kim Deal, The Dandy Warhols, Guns N' Roses, Ryan Adams, Paul Rudd, Coldplay, Pavement, Peter Dinklage, Julie Bowen, The Strokes, Trent Reznor, Chuck Klosterman, Interpol, and Franz Ferdinand, as well as meeting heroes like Allen Ginsberg, Shirley Clarke, Joe Strummer, and Morrissey. Along the way he finds literary guru Gordon Lish is a long-lost relative, and erstwhile pal and sensation JT LeRoy is an even bigger poseur. Spitz refuses to give up the romantic ghost until a post-9/11 breakdown and an improbable new love (fellow music writer Lizzy Goodman) finally help him strike the hardest pose of all: his true self. /DIV


Book Synopsis Poseur by : Marc Spitz

Download or read book Poseur written by Marc Spitz and published by Da Capo Press. This book was released on 2013-02-12 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Marc Spitz assumed that if he lived like his literary and rock 'n' roll heroes, he would become a great artist, too. He conveniently overlooked the fact that many of them died young, broke, and miserable. In his candid, wistful, touching, and hilarious memoir, Poseur, the music journalist, playwright, author, and blogger recounts his misspent years as a suburban kid searching for authenticity, dangerous fun, and druggy, downtown glory: first during New York's last era of risk and edge, the pre-gentrification '90s, and finally as a flamboyant and notorious rock writer, partying and posing during the music industry's heady, decadent last gasp. Part profane, confidential tell-all and part sweetly frank coming-of-age tale, this dirty, witty memoir finds Spitz careening through the scene, meeting and sometimes clashing with cultural icons like Courtney Love, Jeff Buckley, Rivers Cuomo of Weezer, Chloëevigny, Kim Deal, The Dandy Warhols, Guns N' Roses, Ryan Adams, Paul Rudd, Coldplay, Pavement, Peter Dinklage, Julie Bowen, The Strokes, Trent Reznor, Chuck Klosterman, Interpol, and Franz Ferdinand, as well as meeting heroes like Allen Ginsberg, Shirley Clarke, Joe Strummer, and Morrissey. Along the way he finds literary guru Gordon Lish is a long-lost relative, and erstwhile pal and sensation JT LeRoy is an even bigger poseur. Spitz refuses to give up the romantic ghost until a post-9/11 breakdown and an improbable new love (fellow music writer Lizzy Goodman) finally help him strike the hardest pose of all: his true self. /DIV


In Complete Circles

In Complete Circles

Author: Ciaran Ward

Publisher: CreateSpace

Published: 2013-03-28

Total Pages: 262

ISBN-13: 9781475046359

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A comic and at times irreverent memoir of school life and adolescence in a Northern Irish town during the 1980s and early 1990s with accompanying rants on the absurdities of modern life, nostalgic reminiscences on the news events and popular culture of the era and the subsequent fulfillment of youthful ambitions through travelling, sometimes verging on the surreal. This book is part memoir, part travelogue. The chapters alternate between episodes from the author's school days (written in the past tense) and subsequent travel writings (incorporating the Balkans, Australia, New Zealand, Romania, Spain and Morocco) from several years later (written in the present tense) - but always with a connecting theme linking the two eras. Examples include a schoolboy fascination with horror films linking a visit to Transylvania, daily reports of the Balkan war during the author's schooldays in the early '90s linking a tour of the region 15 years later -and a childhood addiction to tangerines and dreams of trekking through the Sahara on camelback leading to a trip to Morocco.


Book Synopsis In Complete Circles by : Ciaran Ward

Download or read book In Complete Circles written by Ciaran Ward and published by CreateSpace. This book was released on 2013-03-28 with total page 262 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A comic and at times irreverent memoir of school life and adolescence in a Northern Irish town during the 1980s and early 1990s with accompanying rants on the absurdities of modern life, nostalgic reminiscences on the news events and popular culture of the era and the subsequent fulfillment of youthful ambitions through travelling, sometimes verging on the surreal. This book is part memoir, part travelogue. The chapters alternate between episodes from the author's school days (written in the past tense) and subsequent travel writings (incorporating the Balkans, Australia, New Zealand, Romania, Spain and Morocco) from several years later (written in the present tense) - but always with a connecting theme linking the two eras. Examples include a schoolboy fascination with horror films linking a visit to Transylvania, daily reports of the Balkan war during the author's schooldays in the early '90s linking a tour of the region 15 years later -and a childhood addiction to tangerines and dreams of trekking through the Sahara on camelback leading to a trip to Morocco.


I Was a Child

I Was a Child

Author: Bruce Eric Kaplan

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2016-04-12

Total Pages: 210

ISBN-13: 0399183418

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An illustrated memoir by renowned New Yorker cartoonist Bruce Eric Kaplan. “If The Little Prince had crash-landed, instead of in the Sahara, into a middle-class Jewish home in Maplewood, N.J. in the late 1960s, it might feel something like I Was a Child.”—The Hollywood Reporter Bruce Eric Kaplan, also known as BEK, is one of the most celebrated and admired cartoonists in America. I Was a Child is the story of his childhood in suburban New Jersey, detailing the small moments we all experience: going to school, playing with friends, family dinners, watching TV on a hot summer night, and so on. It would seem like a conventional childhood, although Kaplan's anecdotes are accompanied by his signature drawings of family outings and life at home-road trips, milk crates, hamsters, ashtrays, a toupee, a platypus, and much more. Kaplan's cartoons, although simple, are never straightforward; they encompass an easy irony and dark humor that often cuts straight to the truth of experience. Brilliantly relatable and genuinely moving, I Was a Child is about our attempts to understand the mysteries that are our parents, our families, and ourselves.


Book Synopsis I Was a Child by : Bruce Eric Kaplan

Download or read book I Was a Child written by Bruce Eric Kaplan and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2016-04-12 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An illustrated memoir by renowned New Yorker cartoonist Bruce Eric Kaplan. “If The Little Prince had crash-landed, instead of in the Sahara, into a middle-class Jewish home in Maplewood, N.J. in the late 1960s, it might feel something like I Was a Child.”—The Hollywood Reporter Bruce Eric Kaplan, also known as BEK, is one of the most celebrated and admired cartoonists in America. I Was a Child is the story of his childhood in suburban New Jersey, detailing the small moments we all experience: going to school, playing with friends, family dinners, watching TV on a hot summer night, and so on. It would seem like a conventional childhood, although Kaplan's anecdotes are accompanied by his signature drawings of family outings and life at home-road trips, milk crates, hamsters, ashtrays, a toupee, a platypus, and much more. Kaplan's cartoons, although simple, are never straightforward; they encompass an easy irony and dark humor that often cuts straight to the truth of experience. Brilliantly relatable and genuinely moving, I Was a Child is about our attempts to understand the mysteries that are our parents, our families, and ourselves.


Bad Boy

Bad Boy

Author: Walter Dean Myers

Publisher: Harper Collins

Published: 2009-10-06

Total Pages: 159

ISBN-13: 0061974935

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A classic memoir that's gripping, funny, and ultimately unforgettable from the bestselling former National Ambassador of Books for Young People. A strong choice for summer reading—an engaging and powerful autobiographical exploration of growing up a so-called "bad boy" in Harlem in the 1940s. As a boy, Myers was quick-tempered and physically strong, always ready for a fight. He also read voraciously—he would check out books from the library and carry them home, hidden in brown paper bags in order to avoid other boys' teasing. He aspired to be a writer (and he eventually succeeded). But as his hope for a successful future diminished, the values he had been taught at home, in school, and in his community seemed worthless, and he turned to the streets and to his books for comfort. Don’t miss this memoir by New York Times bestselling author Walter Dean Myers, one of the most important voices of our time.


Book Synopsis Bad Boy by : Walter Dean Myers

Download or read book Bad Boy written by Walter Dean Myers and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2009-10-06 with total page 159 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A classic memoir that's gripping, funny, and ultimately unforgettable from the bestselling former National Ambassador of Books for Young People. A strong choice for summer reading—an engaging and powerful autobiographical exploration of growing up a so-called "bad boy" in Harlem in the 1940s. As a boy, Myers was quick-tempered and physically strong, always ready for a fight. He also read voraciously—he would check out books from the library and carry them home, hidden in brown paper bags in order to avoid other boys' teasing. He aspired to be a writer (and he eventually succeeded). But as his hope for a successful future diminished, the values he had been taught at home, in school, and in his community seemed worthless, and he turned to the streets and to his books for comfort. Don’t miss this memoir by New York Times bestselling author Walter Dean Myers, one of the most important voices of our time.