Walter James is originally from New York City, where he grew up in an orphanage and visited friends in the barrio of Spanish Harlem during the pre-civil rights era. He wrote the majority of this poetry collection in 1980. He is a nationally registered respiratory therapist and holds a certified letter from a Chinese Master to teach Kung Fu and Tai Chi Chuan after 15 years of training. He carries a knife scar on his throat and a bullet in his hip, and credits his survival to his Chinese training. His first book is titled Autobiography of an American Orphan.