Myers's mother died three years after his birth, and his father, too poor to raise him, put him into foster care.

His foster parents lived in the African-American neighborhood of Harlem in New York City, and he spent most of his childhood and young adulthood there.

Though Myers describes his young life as happy—filled with basketball games, a loving upbringing, and good books—he suffered from a speech impediment that made it difficult for him to communicate with others, and at first filled him with rage.

Unable to reach out verbally, Myers turned to writing, pouring out his thoughts in poems and short stories.

[11] Published twenty years later, Myers' book Sunrise Over Fallujah (Scholastic, 2008), which follows a young U.S. soldier's experience during the 2003 invasion of Iraq, is a sequel to Fallen Angels.