AUGUST WILSON grew up open to
the creative inspiration in everything
he encountered:
in library books, in music, in artworks,
in the lively conversations
overheard in the restaurants and barbershops
lining the Pittsburgh neighborhood
of his childhood.
August paid attention. He listened.
And when he got older,
he got ideas about what to do
with everything he’d seen and heard—
ideas that would make him one
of the greatest playwrights
in American history.