SkateFate

I wanted to roar out

touch things i had never touched. to see if it was true. was i still here was this life still here. on this side. whatever you call it dude. wanted to touch everything like van Gogh touched and smeared everything when he painted. so i wrote it and spoke it. maybe mama would hear me. cuz i could hear her. sayin' When your heart hurts, sing. wherever you go.

Lucky Z has always lived on the edge—he loved to skateboard, to drag race, to feel alive. But things have taken a turn—he's living with new foster parents and a tragic past. An accident changed everything. And only his voice will set him free.

Juan Felipe Herrera traveled as a child with his parents through many small farming towns and cities in California, until finally settling in San Diego. He has taught poetry from kindergarten to the university level and is the author of numerous poetry and children's books, including Calling The Doves, which won the Ezra Jack Keats Award, and Crashboomlove, which was prized with the Americas Award. He also wrote Upside Down Boy, which was adapted into a musical in New York City, and Laughing Out Loud, I Fly, winner of a Pura Belpré honor award. He holds the Tomás Rivera endowed chair in creative writing at the University of California, Riverside. Juan Felipe lives and tours with the poet Margarita Luna Robles.