Young Americans... Get your story published in this book!

A series of three books that you can be a part of!

By David D. Dickinson and Young Americans everywhere

“American Wisdom and Memoirs: Young Americans Edition”

By David D. Dickinson and Young Americans Everywhere

American Wisdom and Memoirs: Young Americans Edition will the third in a series of books and will cover a very broad range of America’s youngest people. The years determining the scope of Generations X and Y are up for debate, but for the purposes of this book project, we will be asking Young Americans born immediately after the Baby Boomers, between 1965 and 1981 to consider themselves Gen Xers. Those of you born between 1982 and the end of the 20th century would be considered Generation Y. Therefore, some of you may be as much as thirty five years of age and may be the parents of others in the Young Americans edition of this book series. Together; as a large group of young Americans, you have had and will continue to have an enormous impact on our society, in many ways.

Gen Xers have been associated with flannel shirts and grunge music. Often, you have been described as overeducated, underachieving “slackers” who wanted to not be a part of status and social climbing. Other stereotypes have GenXers drinking franchise store coffee and working menial jobs. As is the case with any generation, there is no single description for your entire generation and in the end, each person is an individual with opinions, thoughts and experiences that are unique. We cannot take one group of people and paint them all with the same brush. So, in American Wisdom and Memoirs: Young Americans Edition, we will ask that you take this opportunity to set yourself apart from your peers and speak as an individual. Tell us what makes you who you are. Now that we are away from the late 80s and early 90s that generated the stereotypes that have tried to define you as a generation, tell us who you are today.

How do you feel about the world we live in? How are your perceptions different than those of you parents and educators? What did you learn from your Baby Boomer parents and your grandparents from the era of World War II and how does any of it apply to you today? Do their values work for you or are things so different in today’s world that those values are outdated and inappropriate? As you mature, will your generation have a lower divorce rate than the previous generation? Do you place more value on family? Did anything you learned in school have anything to do with what you need to know today? What do you see for the future for both yourself and your generation? Just because you can accomplish something, should you? Is anything possible if you throw enough money at it? What are your priorities? How are you different from the Generation Y people that we have merged you together with as Young Americans? Is your generation really that different? American Wisdom and Memoirs: Young Americans Edition asks you to ask yourselves these and other tough questions and to tell the world what you think.

Please use this opportunity to speak to everyone who will read this book being written right now by you and many others, because in the end, it is you that will be the authors. It will be you whose voice will be heard.

Generation Y, the Net Generation, Millenials or Echo Boomers, as you are sometimes referred to, follows Generation X and you are the last group of Young Americans born in the 20th century. So, your generation ranges in age from young children to your early and even mid twenties. As there is always debate over when a generation begins, some feel that Generation Y includes people born as early as 1976 and others draw the line at 1982, as stated above. There simply was not a single event, such as the end of World War II, which defines the beginning of the Baby Boomers, to mark the beginning of Generation Y. This book series does not try to define your generation by a term you may choose not to associate with, but rather uses a term of reference commonly understood by most. However you draw the line and by whatever term you use to define your generation, we invite you to be a part of American Wisdom and Memoirs: Young Americans Edition.

Events often define generations and most Young Americans in your generation can remember The Challenger explosion, the fall of the Soviet Union and the first Gulf War. Most of your generation was there to see the widespread use of personal computers and the internet and today, use it for personal communication and socializing more than previous generations. The youngest of you were well aware of 9/11 and the second Gulf War and the War on Terror will probably define the end of your generation just as the Second World War defined the beginning of the Baby Boomers. You are the children of the Boomers and the younger cousins or siblings of Gen Xers.

So, to Young Americans everywhere, we invite you to begin the journey of having your words of wisdom, your individual stories set in print through American Wisdom and Memoirs: Young Americans Edition. The web site near completion and you will be able to submit your thoughts and stories right online. For now, please go to http://www.AmericanWisdomAndMemoirs.com/ and bookmark the page so that you can return and find out more. If you know of someone else that should tell their story and share their wisdom, please let them know.

In the meantime, if you have questions or comments (we welcome fresh ideas), please feel free to email me at dddickinson@AmericanWisdomAndMemoirs.com