The Master Plan: My Journey from Life in Prison to a Life of Purpose

Wilson, who owns a commercial contracting business in Baltimore, shares the uplifting story of how his life changed after he was released from prison. As a child, the book-loving Wilson lived in a violent neighborhood in a home where his mother was sexually abused by her policeman boyfriend. As Wilson got older, he began drinking, skipping school, and hanging out with drug dealers. In 1996, the 17-year-old Wilson killed another young man—Wilson claimed self-defense—and was sentenced to life in prison. “I was done the moment they charged me,” Wilson writes. “I was young; I was black; I had a record seventeen pages long.” In prison, Wilson honored his dying grandfather’s wish for him to turn his life around and wrote his “Master Plan”: his list of maxims and goals included getting a high school diploma, learning to write a résumé, and “no gambling, no horseplay, no sex jokes.” He got his GED; quit drugs; and, after a judge reduced his sentence, he was released from prison, having served 10 years. Sticking to his plan, he writes, helped him succeed after he got out; he started a business that hires ex-convicts and became a motivational speaker who discusses his master plan with at-risk men and women. Inspiring without being preachy, Wilson’s manifesto will greatly appeal to today’s youth. Agent: Peter McGuigan, Foundry Literary + Media. (Feb.)