What would you do next?

When I was a kid, I wanted to be a writer more than anything in the world.  I’d rather have failed as a writer than SUCCEEDED at anything else–I wanted it that badly.  But I’d never met a writer. No one I knew knew one.  My mother was terrified I would fail, and actually burned my stories.  Teachers mocked me, and bullies beat me up just for being a lonely, nerdy,  sensitive, creative kid.   I was told `black people don’t write.’

 

But I was too stupid to quit, to know when I was beat, and bu...