My first book.

It’ll Be Better Tomorrow is a memoir about memory, survival, observation, and the strange ways people become who they are.

Born in 1969 in the Carolina foothills, Steven D. Fortner grew up noticing things he probably should not have noticed and remembering things most people would have forgotten. The details. The contradictions. The moments that seemed meaningless at the time but explained everything years later. He filed them away.

What follows is not a polished story about overcoming adversity. It is a sharp, funny, brutally honest account of growing up through instability, bullying, accidents, family conflict, first love, humiliation, survival, and the long process of figuring out how the world actually works.

Told with dry humor, emotional restraint, and an unusually observant voice, It’ll Be Better Tomorrow unfolds through the moments that shaped a life: near-death experiences, marching bands, broken vehicles, impossible relationships, hard lessons, and the realization that people are rarely what they pretend to be.

Some stories are hilarious. Some are painful. Most are both.

The title comes from something his father told him on the worst night of his life:
“It’ll be better tomorrow.”

His father was right.

Just not the way either of them expected.

It’ll Be Better Tomorrow is Book One. Book Two, How I Became A Hobo, is already underway.

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Available July 7th, 2026

BOOKS