Dem

William Melvin Kelley Jr. was born in Staten Island, New York on November 1, 1937. He studied English at Harvard University. During his senior year, his short story The Poker Game was published in The Harvard Advocate and won the Dana Reed Prize, awarded for the best work of fiction in an undergraduate publication. He left school before graduating to concentrate on writing. His first novel, A Different Drummer, was published in 1962. His other books included Dancers on the Shore, A Drop of Patience, Dem, and Dunfords Travels Everywheres.

He wrote, produced, and starred in Excavating Harlem in 2290, an experimental film made with the video artist Steve Bull and released in 1988. His video diaries of Harlem were edited by Benjamin Oren Abrams into a short film, The Beauty That I Saw, which was shown at the Harlem International Film Festival in 2015. He died from complications of kidney failure on February 1, 2017 at the age of 79.

030