I began planning 17 to Life: A Black Boy Memoir when I was seventeen and had a complete first draft by my senior year in college. The book grew out of a need to record my transition from boyhood to manhood in America. The first chapter begins with my arrival in America at age nine and follows my story until I graduated high school.

Where I was born, the Caribbean island of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, I was just a boy. In America, at nine years old, I suddenly became black and had to make sense of what that meant in this new world. I've lived in the American suburb, in the urban jungle that is New York City. I've waded through family dysfunction, government cheese, self hate, bitterness, steaming anger at God and His world. I was a C and D student, a negative-thinking boy convinced that life held nothing of value. I shunned my family, ignored my friends, lost hope in human goodness. I was scared of the possibilities - scared of the [black] boy in me. I lived that darkness and then... then, I became an A student, class valedictorian, Most Likely to Succeed, Broadway actor, full college scholarship recipient, friend, contributor to the well-being of my family. I became the human being I wanted to be, bent on transforming the world for the better. And all this happened between the ages of nine and seventeen.

I am an unknown in publishing. As such, it is all on me to create my own path to greatness in the industry. I have no doubt in my ability to write and accept my responsibility to market, promote, publicize, to work my way to where I need to be. Nothing scares me about the road ahead. In fact, the process will only reinforce 17 to Life's core messages:

Click here to watch documentaries of me reading from 17 to Life's first few chapters.

To schedule appearances, readings or writing workshops, contact me. If you are and agent or publisher looking to work with the next James Baldwin, contact me as well.

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