Jess Mowry
Encyclopedia
Jess Mowry is an American
author of books and stories for children and young adult
s. He has written fourteen books and many short stories for and about black children and teens in a variety of genres, ranging from inner-city settings to the forests of Haiti
. Many of the novels are set in San Francisco or Oakland, California
(USA), and deal with contemporary themes such as crack cocaine
, drug dealers, teenage sexuality, school dropout
s, and street slang.
father, and a Caucasian
mother. When he was only a few months old, his mother abandoned him. His father took Jess to Oakland, California
, where he supported himself and his son by working as a crane operator, truck driver, and scrap-metal salvager. Jess's father was a voracious reader who introduced his son to books at a very early age. Jess Mowry attended a public school, but despite his love of reading, was not an above-average student. He dropped out of school at age thirteen, partway through the eighth grade. After leaving school, Mowry worked with his father in the scrap-iron business and, in his late teens, moved to Arizona to work as a truck driver and heavy equipment operator. He also lived and worked in Alaska
as an engineer aboard a tugboat and as an aircraft mechanic on Douglas C-47 cargo planes.
magazine in San Francisco. Junker rejected the tale but asked to see more work, and published the second story Jess sent. Mowry bought a 1923 Underwood typewriter for eight dollars, and within a year, his work was appearing in literary magazines in the United States and abroad.
In 1990, Mowry's first collection of stories, Rats in the Trees, won a PEN Oakland/Josephine Miles Literary Award
and was also published in the United Kingdom, Germany and Japan. In 1991, Mowry's first novel, Children of the Night, was published by Holloway House in Los Angeles. In 1992, his second novel, Way Past Cool, was published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux of New York. Way Past Cool was also published in the United Kingdom, Italy, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, and Japan. It was optioned for a film, for which Mowry co-wrote the screenplay. The film, under the same titled, was produced by Redeemable Features in 2000 with director Adam Davidson and executive producers Norman Lear
and Milos Forman
. Other novels followed, including Six Out Seven, Babylon Boyz, Bones Become Flowers, Skeleton Key, Phat Acceptance, and Voodu Dawgz. His trademark is dialog that is a mixture of street slang and surfer lingo.
Mowry's characters and settings range from gun-toting gang kids in Oakland and Voodoo
apprentices in New Orleans' French Quarter, to teenage airplane pilots and child-soldiers in Africa. As Mowry’s puts it: “Almost all my stories and books are for and about Black kids who are not always cute and cuddly. My characters often spit, sweat, and swear, as well as occasionally smoke or drink. Just like their real-world counterparts, some are overweight, may look too Black, or are otherwise unacceptable by superficial [mainstream] American values. Like on-the-real kids, they often live in dirty and violent environments, and are forced into sometimes unpleasant lifestyles."
Jess Mowry emerged during the mid- 1990s as one of America's most original and important—yet relatively unheralded—Black writers. His low profile is as much a matter of personal preference as of any lack of merit or of public interest in his writing. Mowry has declined to take the easy way, refusing to be seduced by fame or money into writing the kind of Black ghetto fiction that mainstream publishers seem to want. Instead, Mowry remains socially committed and aware; he prefers doing things his way as he works to improve the lives and self-image of black street kids.
Jess Mowry lives in Oakland.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
author of books and stories for children and young adult
Youth
Youth is the time of life between childhood and adulthood . Definitions of the specific age range that constitutes youth vary. An individual's actual maturity may not correspond to their chronological age, as immature individuals could exist at all ages.-Usage:Around the world, the terms "youth",...
s. He has written fourteen books and many short stories for and about black children and teens in a variety of genres, ranging from inner-city settings to the forests of Haiti
Haiti
Haiti , officially the Republic of Haiti , is a Caribbean country. It occupies the western, smaller portion of the island of Hispaniola, in the Greater Antillean archipelago, which it shares with the Dominican Republic. Ayiti was the indigenous Taíno or Amerindian name for the island...
. Many of the novels are set in San Francisco or Oakland, California
Oakland, California
Oakland is a major West Coast port city on San Francisco Bay in the U.S. state of California. It is the eighth-largest city in the state with a 2010 population of 390,724...
(USA), and deal with contemporary themes such as crack cocaine
Crack cocaine
Crack cocaine is the freebase form of cocaine that can be smoked. It may also be termed rock, hard, iron, cavvy, base, or just crack; it is the most addictive form of cocaine. Crack rocks offer a short but intense high to smokers...
, drug dealers, teenage sexuality, school dropout
Dropout
-In science:*Dropout .*Dropout .*Dropout .*Dropout as a type of sampling bias in scientific studies-Popular culture:*DropOut, hip hop sensation rapper Harry Papas also known as "LAE"....
s, and street slang.
Early life
Jess Mowry was born to an African AmericanAfrican American
African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...
father, and a Caucasian
Caucasian race
The term Caucasian race has been used to denote the general physical type of some or all of the populations of Europe, North Africa, the Horn of Africa, Western Asia , Central Asia and South Asia...
mother. When he was only a few months old, his mother abandoned him. His father took Jess to Oakland, California
Oakland, California
Oakland is a major West Coast port city on San Francisco Bay in the U.S. state of California. It is the eighth-largest city in the state with a 2010 population of 390,724...
, where he supported himself and his son by working as a crane operator, truck driver, and scrap-metal salvager. Jess's father was a voracious reader who introduced his son to books at a very early age. Jess Mowry attended a public school, but despite his love of reading, was not an above-average student. He dropped out of school at age thirteen, partway through the eighth grade. After leaving school, Mowry worked with his father in the scrap-iron business and, in his late teens, moved to Arizona to work as a truck driver and heavy equipment operator. He also lived and worked in Alaska
Alaska
Alaska is the largest state in the United States by area. It is situated in the northwest extremity of the North American continent, with Canada to the east, the Arctic Ocean to the north, and the Pacific Ocean to the west and south, with Russia further west across the Bering Strait...
as an engineer aboard a tugboat and as an aircraft mechanic on Douglas C-47 cargo planes.
Life as an author
Returning to Oakland in the early 1980s, Jess Mowry began working with kids at a youth center, reading to them and often making up stories because there were very few books to which inner-city youth could relate. Later, he began to write the stories. In 1988, Mowry sent one of his stories to Howard Junker, editor of ZyzzyvaZyzzyva (magazine)
Zyzzyva is a triannual magazine of writers and artists. It places an emphasis on showcasing emerging voices and never before published writers in addition to the already established. Based in San Francisco, it began publishing in 1985. ZYZZYVAs slogan is "The Last Word," referring to "zyzzyva", the...
magazine in San Francisco. Junker rejected the tale but asked to see more work, and published the second story Jess sent. Mowry bought a 1923 Underwood typewriter for eight dollars, and within a year, his work was appearing in literary magazines in the United States and abroad.
In 1990, Mowry's first collection of stories, Rats in the Trees, won a PEN Oakland/Josephine Miles Literary Award
PEN Oakland/Josephine Miles Literary Award
According to its website, PEN Oakland was founded in 1989 by Ishmael Reed, who came up with the idea, and co-founders Floyd Salas, Reginald Lockett and Claire Ortalda, in order to “promote works of excellence by writers of all cultural and racial backgrounds and to educate both the public and the...
and was also published in the United Kingdom, Germany and Japan. In 1991, Mowry's first novel, Children of the Night, was published by Holloway House in Los Angeles. In 1992, his second novel, Way Past Cool, was published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux of New York. Way Past Cool was also published in the United Kingdom, Italy, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, and Japan. It was optioned for a film, for which Mowry co-wrote the screenplay. The film, under the same titled, was produced by Redeemable Features in 2000 with director Adam Davidson and executive producers Norman Lear
Norman Lear
Norman Milton Lear is an American television writer and producer who produced such 1970s sitcoms as All in the Family, Sanford and Son, One Day at a Time, The Jeffersons, Good Times and Maude...
and Milos Forman
Miloš Forman
Jan Tomáš Forman , better known as Miloš Forman , is a Czech-American director, screenwriter, professor, and an emigrant from Czechoslovakia. Two of his films, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and Amadeus, are among the most celebrated in the history of film, both gaining him the Academy Award for...
. Other novels followed, including Six Out Seven, Babylon Boyz, Bones Become Flowers, Skeleton Key, Phat Acceptance, and Voodu Dawgz. His trademark is dialog that is a mixture of street slang and surfer lingo.
Mowry's characters and settings range from gun-toting gang kids in Oakland and Voodoo
Louisiana Voodoo
Louisiana Voodoo, also known as New Orleans Voodoo, describes a set of underground religious practices which originated from the traditions of the African diaspora. It is a cultural form of the Afro-American religions which developed within the French, Spanish, and Creole speaking African American...
apprentices in New Orleans' French Quarter, to teenage airplane pilots and child-soldiers in Africa. As Mowry’s puts it: “Almost all my stories and books are for and about Black kids who are not always cute and cuddly. My characters often spit, sweat, and swear, as well as occasionally smoke or drink. Just like their real-world counterparts, some are overweight, may look too Black, or are otherwise unacceptable by superficial [mainstream] American values. Like on-the-real kids, they often live in dirty and violent environments, and are forced into sometimes unpleasant lifestyles."
Jess Mowry emerged during the mid- 1990s as one of America's most original and important—yet relatively unheralded—Black writers. His low profile is as much a matter of personal preference as of any lack of merit or of public interest in his writing. Mowry has declined to take the easy way, refusing to be seduced by fame or money into writing the kind of Black ghetto fiction that mainstream publishers seem to want. Instead, Mowry remains socially committed and aware; he prefers doing things his way as he works to improve the lives and self-image of black street kids.
Jess Mowry lives in Oakland.
Novels
- Children of the Night (Holloway House, 1991) is set in Oakland, California in the late 1980s; the first wave of the U.S. crack epidemic.
- Way Past Cool (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1992 - Windstorm Creative, 2006) is set in Oakland, California: about young African-American teens trying to survive and make the right choices in a world of gangs, guns, drugs and violence.
- Six Out Seven (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1993) After 13-year-old Corbitt Wainwright's father is imprisoned for attacking a white man in Mississippi, the boy sets out for Oakland, California—and a world even bleaker than the one he left behind.
- Ghost Train (Henry Holt & Co. 1995) is set in Oakland, California. Two young teens attempt to solve a murder that took place on a train fifty years in the past.
- Babylon Boyz (Simon & Schuster, 1996) is set in Oakland, California. Two youg teens, Pook and Dante, see Air Touch, a drug dealer, toss a case out of his car window during a police chase. Hoping that the case holds money that will finally give them choices, they take it only to find that the package is filled with pure cocaine.
- Bones Become Flowers (Windstorm Creative, 2000) is set in Haiti. An African-American woman travels to Haiti to fund a children's refuge but becomes enmeshed in a web of VoodooVoodooHaitian Vodou is a syncretic religion that originates in the Caribbean country of Haiti. It is based upon a merging of the beliefs and practices of West African peoples , with Arawakian religious beliefs, and Roman Catholic Christianity...
and mystery. - Skeleton Key (Windstorm Creative, 2007) is set in Oakland, California. A young teen boy flees a drug dealer and hides out in a graveyard.
- Phat Acceptance (Windstorm Creative, 2007) is set in Santa Cruz, California and explores the so-called childhood obesity crisis; its commercial hype, self-serving junk science, and health-Nazi hysteria though the eyes of its multiracial teen characters.
- Tyger Tales (Windstorm Creative, 2007) is set in Oakland and San Francisco, California, a novel about child-exploitation, kiddie porn, and internet predators.
- Voodu Dawgz (Windstorm Creative, 2007) is set in New Orleans, Louisiana: a group of young teens fight both supernatural and real-world evil using Voodoo magic.
- When All Goes Bright (Windstorm Creative, 2007) is set in Africa; about child-soldiers, sweat-shops, and modern-day imperialism.
- Knight's Crossing (Windstorm Creative, 2007) is set in Louisiana in the months before the American Civil War, about slavery.
In magazines
- "Big Bird" (Obsidian II, summer 1990)
- "Big Bird" (Berkeley Fiction Review, Number 13, 1993)
- "Crusader Rabbit" (Zyzzyva, winter, 1990)
- "Crusader Rabbit" (Los Angeles Times Magazine, 1991)
- "Crusader Rabbit" (Shooting Star Review, winter 1991/92)
- "Der Neue" (Bateria, 1992)
- "Don't Be Cool" (Obsidian II, spring, 1991)
- "Enfant Perdu" (Zyzzyva, fall 1997
- "One Way" (Zyzzyva, winter, 1988)
- "One Way" (Barcelona Review, May/June, 2000)
- "Perv" (Alchemy, 1989)
- "The Ship" (Sequoia, summer 1989)
- "Third-World Wolf" (Obsidian II, fall-winter, 1998)
In anthologies
- "Animal Right" (In The Tradition, Harlem River Press, 1992)
- "Animal Right" (Listening To Ourselves, Anchor Books - Doubleday, 1994)
- "Child of All Ages" (Black Short Fiction, Alexander Street Press, 2004)
- "Crusader Rabbit" (Cornerstones, St. Martin's Press, 1996)
- "Crusader Rabbit" (The Penguin Book Of The City, Penguin BooksPenguin BooksPenguin Books is a publisher founded in 1935 by Sir Allen Lane and V.K. Krishna Menon. Penguin revolutionised publishing in the 1930s through its high quality, inexpensive paperbacks, sold through Woolworths and other high street stores for sixpence. Penguin's success demonstrated that large...
, 1997) - "Crusader Rabbit" (Follow That Dream, 1998, European Educational Publishers Group)
- "Crusader Rabbit" (Free Within Ourselves, Doubleday, 1999)
- "Dreamtime Story" (Black Short Fiction, Alexander Street Press, 2004)
- "Esu's Island" (I Believe In Water, Harper-Collins, 2000)
- "One Way" (The Pushcart Prize 1991/92, Pushcart PressPushcart PressPushcart Press is a publishing house established in 1972 by Bill Henderson and is perhaps most famous for its Pushcart Prize and for the anthology of prize winners it publishes annually. The press has been honored by Publishers Weekly as one of the USA's "most influential publishers" with the 1979...
, 1991) - "One Way" (California Shorts, Heyday BooksHeyday BooksHeyday Books is an independent nonprofit publisher based in Berkeley, California.Heyday was founded by Malcolm Margolin in 1974 when he wrote, typeset, designed, and distributed The East Bay Out, a guide to the natural history of the hills and bayshore around Berkeley and Oakland...
, 1999) - "Phat Acceptance" (Face Relations, Simon & SchusterSimon & SchusterSimon & Schuster, Inc., a division of CBS Corporation, is a publisher founded in New York City in 1924 by Richard L. Simon and M. Lincoln Schuster. It is one of the four largest English-language publishers, alongside Random House, Penguin and HarperCollins...
, 2004) - "Spontaneous Combustion" (Black Short Fiction, Alexander Street PressAlexander Street PressAlexander Street Press LLC is a premier database publisher in the humanities and social sciences . Like Ebsco, Proquest, Gale Cengage, and the Cambridge Information Group, it's engaged in 'born native' digital publishing....
, 2004) - "The Execution" (Black Short Fiction, Alexander Street PressAlexander Street PressAlexander Street Press LLC is a premier database publisher in the humanities and social sciences . Like Ebsco, Proquest, Gale Cengage, and the Cambridge Information Group, it's engaged in 'born native' digital publishing....
, 2004) - "The Picture" (Black Short Fiction, Alexander Street Press, 2004)
- "The Resurrection" (Make Me Over, Dutton, 2005)
- "Way Past Cool excerpt" (Brotherman, BallantineBallantine BooksBallantine Books is a major book publisher located in the United States, founded in 1952 by Ian Ballantine with his wife, Betty Ballantine. It was acquired by Random House in 1973, which in turn was acquired by Bertelsmann AG in 1998 and remains part of that company today. Ballantine's logo is a...
, 1995)
Articles and essays
- "Symposium - Does Brown Still Matter?" (The Nation, May 23, 1994)
- "Stupid Rejection Letters to a Black Author" (Voice Of Youth Advocates, December, 1997)
- "Wake Up, America, There are Gangs under Your Beds" (Shiny Adidas, Tracksuits, And The Death Of Camp - Might MagazineMight magazineMight was a San Francisco-based magazine co-founded in the early 1990s by David Moodie, Marny Requa and Dave Eggers, who went on to describe the magazine's rise and fall in his bestselling memoir A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius....
, Berkeley, 1998) - "We Have Met the Enemy and He Is U.S." (September 11; West Coast Writers Approach Ground Zero, Hawthorne, 2002