ME, author of FOR YOU WOMAN: Spirit Jewels, was raised in the dirty South: the inner-city neighborhood of Liberty City in Miami, Florida. He considers himself a classic old-school gangsta, a hustler, and a scholar. He is also a Vietnam-era veteran.

ME wrote and illustrated a comic strip book in the seventh grade, and in college, he penned articles for the newspaper of the University of the District of Columbia. But it was not until he spent time in a maximum-security federal prison that he had the time to focus on polishing his writing skills. Like a diamond formed in the wall of a volcano due to prolonged, intense heat, he gradually transformed into a poetic prophet of truth and love—a poetic Picasso from the hood.