Endie Fiya: LIVE with Author & Poet NattyBoyBlac

My name is Nathaniel Little I was born in Houston Texas 1987 but raised in both Dallas and San Antonio. When I was young, I would have never imagined being a published author or performing spoken word in front of anyone. In 2004 in high school, I suffered a catastrophic injury on the football field that completely turned my life upside down and changed my goals. I broke my neck, the C-5 vertebrae, and it left me a quadriplegic. When the injury initially happened, I had no means of expressing myself until my sister reintroduced me to poetry. With the software, Dragon NaturallySpeaking, I was able to dictate my words onto a computer. I went to school and finally got a degree in strategic communications, with a focus in public relations. Because of my disability, I couldn't get hired. So, I started finding my own clients I would be able to work with, but even that did not get me an income that could sustain me. So, I began to write. Everybody I showed my writing to gave me really good feedback and it made me feel better about my work will. I got tired of sitting on my talents I wanted to put some of my poetry in the book. But I didn’t want it to be a book just about me, I wanted to reach out to people in North Texas that went through their own personal trials and that have a passion for poetry. I held an online poetry competition and the top 11 poets got to join me in the book. The income still isn’t something that would change my life, but my life is still changed because I feel good about what I do. Poetry is not only an outlet, but it has been something to bring joy to me and to others. Through the book, I become a mentor to other poets. Recently I decided to challenge myself on InstaGram and I made a post requesting for anybody to send me any kind of picture and I will write a poem about it. That one post led to almost hundred pictures getting sent to my DM.