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Jerald Walker

Born: 1964 in Chicago, Il
Pen Name: None

Connection to Illinois: Walker grew up on the south side of Chicago.

Biography: Jerald Walker is with the Department of Writing, Literature and Publishing at Emmerson College. He attended the Iowa Writers' Workship, where he was a teaching/writing fellow and James A. Michener Fellows. His work has appeared in ''Mother Jones'' and the anthology ''Brothers: 26 Stories of Love and Rivalry''. His book, ''Street Shadows: A Memoir of Race, Rebellion, and Redemption'' is a moving story where Walker reveals his own struggles growing up in Chicago housing projects. He talks about being a boy of great promise, his descent into the 'thug life' and the wakeup call that led to him finding himself again. It is an eloquent account of how the past shadows but need not determine the present. Walker currently resides in Massachusetts.


Awards:

Primary Literary Genre(s): Non-Fiction

Primary Audience(s): Adult readers

Email: Jerald_Walker@emerson.edu
Jerald Walker on WorldCat : http://www.worldcat.org/search?q=jerald++walker


Selected Titles

Street shadows :
ISBN: 0553807552 OCLC: 368006121

Bantam Books, New York : ©2010.

Documents the author's early life in a violent Chicago housing project where he dropped out of school and got into drugs before the murder of his coke-dealer friend prompted him to take stock of his life.

Street shadows :
ISBN: 9780803240957 OCLC: 751250741

University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln : 2012.

Memoir of Jerald Walker about how he went from a life as a thug on the streets of Chicago to become a middle-class citizen, overcoming racial boundaries and stereotypes.

 

 

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