The book I chose to read, Shackled, was written by a man named Tom Leveen. Being born under the legal name of Thomas A. Leveen was born, raised, and is still a resident in Arizona. Having been writing since he was in second grade Tom has never let go of his dream. Being a graduate from Arizona State University he later moved on to work at the Scottsdale Public Library. After 6 years of doing regular library work he became an early literacy outreach specialist for the Phoenix Public Library (Spratt, “Meet Tom Leveen! Local Storyteller & Author”) to further share his literary dream. However he has also branched off from this dream to try and accomplish plethora of other things as well. Tom has been involved in other literary fields such as drama…show more content… This later resulted with him becoming an artistic director and cofounder of an all ages non profit visual and performing venue in Scottsdale, Arizona (Simon & Schuster, “Shackled”). His connection to the visual arts then allowed him to further branch out and work with young adults at events including those of theater, visual art exhibits, as well as live music(The Book Report Inc., Tom Leveen”). This not very surprising as Leveen himself was once in a punk band in his youth, yet they only performed once live (Gravida, Books). Although it has been revealed to me that Tom Leveen only lets people know what he wants them to. While doing research on him I found even though I was able to find out that he ran a marathon in 6 ½ hours, or even that he had a blue belt in Tae Kwon Do, I couldn’t find when he was born, or even the names of his wife and son. This showing not only his diversity to branch out, try new things and encourage others to do so, but that he values his privacy. His accomplishments are widely shared but his personal endeavors remain a secret. This may be due to the fact that he has only written 9 complete novels, 2 independent books, a horror novella as well as a comic series were he teamed up with author Todd
