Walter Dean Myers Biography

Fallen Angels About the Author

Walter Dean Myers was born August 12, 1934, in Martinsburg, West Virginia. Myers' mother died while he was an infant, and soon afterwards, Florence and Herbert Dean took the young Myers and two of his sisters to raise as their own. The Deans moved to Harlem when he was three years old, and Myers lived there through his young adult years.

Although the Deans were poor, Myers writes that he never experienced hunger or cold while growing up. He felt the unfairness of life, however, when he realized there was no money to send him to college. Myers dropped out of high school, but continued the high volume of reading and writing he had begun in grade school. He drifted for a few years and then, at seventeen, joined the army. Once out of the army, Myers married, started a family, and worked at various jobs in New...
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