Walter Dean Myers
(b. 1937)

Walter Dean Myers has won numerous awards for his fiction, nonfiction, and poetry for young people. He is best known for his gritty, realistic stories about African American young people growing up in urban environments.

In addition to his realistic novels about inner-city life, Myers has also written fairy tales, ghost stories, science fiction, and adventure stories. A common theme runs through Myers's work. He believes in "the need to find strength within oneself and the possibility of finding strength within the group, whether the group is the family, the peer group, or the community."

Myers was born in Martinsburg, West Virginia, in 1937. Before he was three years old, his mother died. His family was very poor, so young Walter and two of his sisters were sent to live with family friends, Herbert and Florence Dean. The new family moved to Harlem, a section of New York City.

The Deans were a loving couple who treated Myers kindly. Florence taught him to read, and Herbert enjoyed telling him stories. When he thinks back to his childhood in Harlem, Myers fondly remembers "the bright sun on Harlem streets, the easy rhythms of black and brown bodies, the sounds of children streaming in and out of red brick tenements."

However, Myers also faced some difficulties during this time. He suffered from a speech impediment, and found it especially trying to speak in front of his class at school. He discovered that writing was a way of communicating easily, and he quickly grew to love it. He began filling notebooks with original stories, poetry, and journal entries. Myers also loved to read. He once said, "The George Bruce Branch of the public library was my most treasured place. I couldn't believe my luck in discovering that what I enjoyed most, reading, was free."

Myers's essays and poetry earned him many honors and awards. Despite this encouragement at school, though, Myers's family did not see writing as a part of his future. "I was from a family of laborers," he says, "and the idea of writing stories or essays was far removed from their experience."

When he was 16, Myers dropped out of high school. On his 17th birthday, he joined the Army. Though he continued to read and write, he regarded these activities as hobbies. After leaving the army at age 20, Myers had trouble finding a good job. He began to wish he hadn't left school.

Myers decided to go to college. He began working toward a bachelor's degree, got married, and started a family. Myers supported his wife and children with a series of jobs, including working at the New York State Department of Labor and at the post office.

Myers continued to write in his spare time. By the late 1960s, he made up his mind to become a writer, and he began to work as an editor at a book publishing company. He would not be able to devote all his time to writing until 1977.

In 1969, Myers published his first book, a children's book called Where Does the Day Go? It received an award from the Council on Interracial Books for Children. Myers was immediately seen as an author concerned with minority children, an author who could fill a void in American publishing.

Since then, Myers has written more than 50 books. He is best known for writing quality literature about African American young people. For example, the novel Scorpions is about a young black man who joins a gang. The Glory Field traces the story of an African American family from the period of slavery until today. Myers has won many prestigious awards, including the Coretta Scott King Award and a Newbery honor book citation.

Harlem, a section of New York City, provides the setting for many of Walter Dean Myers's books. It was established in 1658 by the Dutch, who named it after Haarlem in the Netherlands. In the 18th century, Harlem was a farming area. In the 19th century, it became a fashionable district with many summer vacation houses. Around this time, many African Americans migrated from the South to big urban centers in the North. By 1910, Harlem had become one of the largest African American communities in the United States. During the 1920s and early 1930s, Harlem was the center of a black literary and intellectual movement known as the Harlem Renaissance. Among the writers associated with this period are Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, and W.E.B. DuBois.

The Harlem Renaissance faded with the Great Depression of the 1930s. By the end of World War II, housing and living conditions in the area deteriorated. Today, Harlem is developing renovated housing areas and a business district. African Americans constitute the majority of the population, and Hispanics are the second largest group.

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