What would you do if you were seventeen years old and broke your neck? It's tough enough to stand on the verge of adulthood without the extra burden of not being able to stand at all. Steve Fiffer had his whole life ahead of him in December 1967 when he fractured his fifth cervical vertebra in a wrestling accident at school, shattering his dreams. The diagnosis was quadriplegia, and his parents were told that he would never walk again. Steve, however, was not content to accept such a fate. He had always been taught that he was a leader, not a follower, and he was not going to take this news lying down. Within five months he was out of the hospital, within seven he was on crutches, and within nine he was beginning his freshman year at Yale University. And most remarkable of all, he never lost his wisecracking sense of humor or his hunger for all that life has to offer.

Steve Fiffer is the author of seven books, including the award-winning A Season for Justice, written with Morris Dees. He is also the co-editor (with his wife, Sharon Sloan Fiffer) of the literary anthologies Home: American Writers Remember Rooms of Their Own and Family: American Writers Remember Their Own. A graduate of Yale University and the University of Chicago Law School, he is a frequent contributor to The New York Times and Chicago Magazine. He lives with his wife and three children in Evanston, Illinois.