Harry Crews
1935-
Birthplace: Bacon County, Georgia
Typewriter: Underwood 11, Royal Desktops, IBM Selectrics

Harry Crews published his first novel, The Gospel Singer, in 1968. Since then, he has become a living “cult classic”, translated all over the world. Crews published Feast of Snakes, perhaps his greatest novel, in 1976, after which he began a decade of reportage, interviews and vignettes for such magazines as Playboy and Esquire. A collection of these, Blood and Grits (1979) is considered by many his finest work.

Crews taught for many years at the University of Florida in Gainesville, spawning three generations of now noted and up-and-coming American writers. In 1978, Crews published A Childhood: The Biography of a Place (1981), considered a modern classic, and subsequently wrote the acclaimed novels The Knockout Artist (1987) and Scar Lover (1992).