Damon Talbot

1st & Main Damon Talbot

Welcome to the world of "Streetkids." 1st & Main is a passion project years in the making. The story serves to look at the lives, struggles, and varied backgrounds of homeless youth in America. The 1st & Main series is based in a world that could be any city in America as the challenges of youth homelessness can occur anywhere. The stories will endeavor to challenge your own personal thoughts on an epidemic problem in our country. This work of fiction is based on real experiences of homeless youth living in Salt Lake City, Utah, during the early 2000s. Though years have passed, unfortunately, it is still a problem faced by many young adults to this day. This novel takes the realities of homeless youth. It builds them into a fictional story that explores many of the real-world challenges faced day by day. The story holds nothing back and includes the graphic language, complicated situations, and reality that Streetkids live with on the street every day. While the focus is on youth homelessness, it also touches on equity, alcohol and drug abuse, verbal, physical, sexual abuse, and more. The story was initially written as a screenplay around 2010 and then produced for film and video in 2016. Unfortunately, due to circumstances beyond anyone's control, the production was halted before it could be completed. After several years of trying to launch a new production, it was decided to novelize the story to tell this important and impactful story to the world. To expose the reader to the inner world of being a Streetkid, we follow a teenage girl who runs away from home. She escapes a callous home life and trades it for a world she doesn't know or understand. Through her experience befriending a group of Streetkids, we will learn with her what life on the street is really like. We will learn together what it takes to survive each day. As we get to know several homeless youths, we will learn some of the reasons they ended up on the street, the challenges they deal with, and their hopes and dreams for the future.