Larry McMurtry
1936-
Birthplace: Wichita Falls, Texas.
Typewriter: Hermes 3000*

Novelist, essayist, and screenwriter Larry McMurtry was born June 3, 1936 in Wichita Falls, Texas. He grew up on a ranch just outside of Archer City, graduating from Archer City High School in 1954. He attended North Texas State University (B.A. 1958), then Rice University (1954, 1958-60, M.A. 1960), and studied for one semester outside of Texas, at Stanford University, as a Stegner Fellow, (1960-61). McMurtry published his first novels while working as an English instructor at Texas Christian University (1961-62), Rice University (1963-65), George Mason College (1970), and American University, (1970-71). In 1962, he won the Texas Institute of Letters Jesse M. Jones award, and in 1964, he won a Guggenheim grant. In 1970, he bought a rare-book store in Washington D.C.'s Georgetown neighborhood, named it Booked Up, and relocated to run the store. A second Booked Up was opened in Archer City, Texas, in 1988.

According to an LA Times’ cover story (Dec. 15, 2002) tilted “Loner” by staff writer Scott Kraft, McMurtry pecks away for 90 minutes on a manual Hermes 3000 typewriter every day at 7:30 in the morning. His steady pace: 10 pages a day for a first draft; 20 for a revision.