AUTHOR TALK

June 2003

Walter Dean Myers is an award-winning writer of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry for young people. He has received the Margaret A. Edwards Award for his contribution to young adult literature and is a five-time winner of the Coretta Scott King Award. In this interview, Myers talks about how growing up in Harlem has influenced his writing and the important lessons that can be learned from his latest novel, THE DREAM BEARER.

Q: To what extent does your own childhood, growing up in Harlem, influence your writing?

WDM: My memories of the Harlem of my childhood are dominated not so much in the places I knew but the sense of community and family that surrounded me, nurtured me and made me feel secure within myself. Both my personal identity and my values are represented in this community and it's important for me to identify that identity and those values in my writing.

Q: You left school at just sixteen years of age. Did you have any desire then to become a writer? What brought that about?

WDM: I wanted to write and did write but had no idea that this could be a way to make a living. Writing, for me, was a natural extension of my love for reading and books.

Q: Nate "Tiny" Archibald said of your novel HANDBOOK FOR BOYS: "I've been waiting for somebody to write this book." And you yourself describe it as the book you wish you could have read while growing up. What would you have learned from it, and what do you hope your readers today will take away from it?

WDM: I would have learned that the responsibility for any success I hoped for was dependent primarily on my own choices and willingness to do what I knew was right. Further, that the gap between my actions and what I knew was the right thing to do was also my responsibility. And I would also have learned that there were people before me, people like the characters in HANDBOOK FOR BOYS, who had accepted that responsibility and had been successful.

Q: Your latest novel is THE DREAM BEARER in which young David Curry meets Mr. Moses, an elderly man who tells him that dreams are the key to understanding reality. "There are special dreams," Mr. Moses says, "dreams that fill up the soul, dreams that can be unfolded like wings and lift you off the ground." Can you tell us a little more about Mr. Moses's message, and whether you have any "special" dreams?

WDM: Mr. Moses is telling David that people are not just what they seem at a given moment, but the result of all of their history and even the history their parents might have lived through. When David begins to understand that his father's strange behavior is rooted in a troubled past and his thwarted hopes, he has a clearer understanding of his father and of life in general. I can tell when my dreams reflect the day's anxieties, or if I am working out problems by dreaming of similar situations. Some of my very best ideas for books come to me in my dreams.

Q: Compassion and humanity run deep through all your novels. Would it be fair to say that these are qualities that you admire above all others?

WDM: I most admire people who act on what they believe, who approach life with compassion and an appreciation of our common humanity, but who also make a sincere effort toward positive contributions whenever such contributions are practical.

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