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.