Alcee Walker | Photo by Carter Kegelman
“No matter what cards you are dealt, you can always overcome the obstacles if you stay focused and don’t give up,” said Alcee Walker ’11, author of Hope I Make It Before Ya’ll Take It. Walker was inspired to write the book not only by his personal struggles, but to also let teenagers who are having similar experiences know that it is possible to succeed.
Walker was born in 1989 in West Palm Beach, Florida to a sixteen-year-old mother and twenty-four-year-old father. He learned later in life that his mother had thought of having him aborted. The area where he grew up was surrounded by crime and drugs; two activities that both his mother and older siblings participated in. In an abusive household, and with no one to turn to for guidance, Walker had to make his own path. He became independent in his sophomore year of high school, graduated, and is now a student at St. Lawrence.
Walker’s book is a collection of journal entries that he wrote in order to have a release from the hardships he was experiencing in West Palm Beach. He first started writing the journals after his mother hit him over the head with a glass plate. “I had no confidence or anyone to talk to about what happened,” said Walker. In his writing he told himself, “Ok if I’m gonna do this I have to be honest with myself. I let everything out.”
In order for teens to relate to the book, Walker wanted it to be concise. “Seventy-five pages, eight chapters. I said everything I had to say.” In his letter to readers at the end of the book, he wrote, “I want the opportunity to change the lives of young teens, like my life was changed.” In Walker’s honesty with himself and his readers, he is doing just that.
“I think a lot of people were surprised,” said Walker of his writing the book, but he has gotten a lot of positive feedback. Although he said writing the book was a horrible experience: 15 different drafts and editing chapter after chapter. He is planning on writing another book after his time at St. Lawrence. “I am just enjoying the experience right now,” said Walker. “When I do write part two, I will have my work cut out for me.”
“I made some decisions that I regret, but I made them to survive,” said Walker. His past will always be a part of who he is but this book enabled him to “put the story away and move on with [his] life.”
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