Larry McMurtry

Larry McMurtry was born in June 1936, in Wichita Falls,
Texas, into a family of ranchers. His grandparents were
pioneers, settling in Archer County when west Texas was
still primarily vast, empty prairie. While his father and
eight uncles were all cowboys, Mr. McMurtry as a young
person had a real passion for whatever books he could get
his hands on growing up in the small Texas town of Archer
City. He began learning cowboying at the age of three, when
he got his first horse, and didn't give it up completely
until the age of twenty-three, when he left the family
ranch to further his studies.

After receiving his B.A. from North Texas State College and
his M.A. from Rice University, where he wrote two novels in
his first year, Mr. McMurtry went to Stanford University in
1960 to do graduate work as a Stegner fellow. His first
novel, Horseman Pass By, was published in 1961, and became
the basis for the motion picture Hud, starring Paul Newman.
The Last Picture Show was published in 1966, and shortly
after became the Academy Award-winning motion picture. When
Lonesome Dove was published in 1986, it received critical
acclaim -- hailed as the great cowboy novel and the
grandest novel ever written of the American West -- and was
awarded the Pulitzer Prize. It later became a highly
successful television series. Mr. McMurtry's other novels
include Terms of Endearment, Anything for Billy,
Texasville, and the Lonesome Dove prequel Comanche Moon and
sequel Streets of Laredo. He is the author of two
collections of essays, twenty-two novels, and five works of
nonfiction.

Mr. McMurtry served a two-year term as president of PEN
American Center in New York City. He operates antiquarian
bookstores in Washington, D.C., Arizona, and Texas, and
currently resides in his old hometown, Archer City, where
he is actively fulfilling his boyhood dream of filling it
up with books.