Stephen Harrigan | |
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| Born | 1948 (age 75–76) Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, U.S. |
| Occupation | Writer |
| Alma mater | University of Texas at Austin |
| Genre | Novelist, screenwriter |
| Notable awards | Spur Award James Fenimore Cooper Award |
Stephen Harrigan (born 1948) is an American novelist, journalist and screenwriter. He is best known as the author of the bestselling The Gates of the Alamo, for other novels such as Remember Ben Clayton and A Friend of Mr. Lincoln, and for his magazine work in Texas Monthly.
He was born in Oklahoma City in 1948 as Michael Stephen McLaughlin, the second son of Marjorie Berney McLaughlin, an Army nurse, and of James Erwin McLaughlin, a decorated fighter pilot in World War II who was killed in a plane crash on Mt. Pilchuck northeast of Seattle six months before Harrigan was born. [1] When he was five, his mother married Tom Harrigan, a Texas-based independent oilman. The family moved to Abilene, and then to Corpus Christi. Stephen Harrigan graduated from the University of Texas at Austin in 1971 and—after several years working as a yardman—began writing for the newly established magazine Texas Monthly and launched his career as a freelance writer. His articles and essays have appeared there and in a wide variety of other magazines, including Outside, Esquire, The New York Times Book Review, National Geographic,American History, The Wall Street Journal, and Slate.
Harrigan's novel, The Gates of the Alamo, published in 2000, was a New York Times bestseller and the recipient of a number of awards, including the TCU Texas Book Award, the Western Heritage Award from the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum and the Spur Award for Best Novel of the West from the Western Writers of America. His 2011 novel Remember Ben Clayton also won the Spur Award, as well as the Jesse H. Jones Award from the Texas Institute of Letters and the James Fenimore Cooper Prize from the Society of American Historians for best historical novel. His latest novel is A Friend of Mr. Lincoln, a work of fiction centering on Abraham Lincoln's early career as a lawyer and state legislator in Springfield, Illinois. A starred review in Publishers Weekly hailed the book as “superb” [2] and, in the judgment of Pulitzer Prize winning historian Joseph J. Ellis, it is “historical fiction at its very best.” [3] He has recently finished a sweeping history of Texas, from prehistory to the present, entitled "Big Wonderful Thing". It is already a bestseller on Amazon.
Stephen Harrigan has also been a prolific screenwriter, principally in the field of made-for-television movies, a career he recounted in a Slate essay titled "I Was an A-List Writer of B-List Productions." [4] Among the films he has written are The Last of His Tribe (HBO), Beyond the Prairie: The True Story of Laura Ingalls Wilder (CBS), King of Texas (TNT) and The Colt (The Hallmark Channel.) He worked with Robert Altman on a feature version of S. R. Bindler's documentary, Hands on a Hard Body, about an endurance contest to win a pickup truck. Altman was in pre-production on the movie at the time of his death in November 2006. [5] More recently, he has collaborated with William Broyles Jr. on a screenplay based on Conn Igulden's series of novels about Julius Caesar. That project is in development with Exclusive Media. Robert Duvall optioned—as producer and star—another screenplay, The Which Way Tree, based on the novel by Elizabeth Crook. Harrigan and Crook co-wrote the screenplay.
Harrigan and his wife Sue Ellen live in Austin, Texas. They have three daughters and five grandchildren. For twenty years, he taught creative writing in the MFA program at the Michener Center for Writers at the University of Texas at Austin. He is a founding member of Capital Area Statues, Inc., an organization that raises money for public monuments that celebrate the history and culture of Texas. He was inducted into the Texas Literary Hall of Fame [6] and has won lifetime achievement awards from the Texas Book Festival [7] and the Texas Institute of Letters. [8]
Texas Monthly is a monthly American magazine headquartered in Downtown Austin, Texas. Founded in 1973 by Michael R. Levy, Texas Monthly chronicles life in contemporary Texas, writing on politics, the environment, industry, and education. The magazine also covers leisure topics such as music, art, dining, and travel. It is a member of the City and Regional Magazine Association (CRMA).
Larry Jeff McMurtry was an American novelist, essayist, and screenwriter whose work was predominantly set in either the Old West or contemporary Texas. His novels included Horseman, Pass By (1962), The Last Picture Show (1966), and Terms of Endearment (1975), which were adapted into films. Films adapted from McMurtry's works earned 34 Oscar nominations. He was also a prominent book collector and bookseller.
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Lovin' Molly is a 1974 American drama film directed by Sidney Lumet and starring Anthony Perkins, Beau Bridges, Blythe Danner in the title role, Ed Binns, and Susan Sarandon. The film is based on one of Larry McMurtry's first novels, Leaving Cheyenne (1963). Prior to release, the film was also known as Molly, Gid, and Johnny and The Wild and The Sweet.
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Ray Russell was an American editor and writer of short stories, novels, and screenplays. Russell is best known for his horror fiction, although he also wrote mystery and science fiction stories.
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Edwin A. "Bud" Shrake, Jr. was an American journalist, sportswriter, novelist, biographer and screenwriter. He co-wrote a series of golfing advice books with golf coach Harvey Penick, including Harvey Penick's Little Red Book, a golf guide that became the best-selling sports book in publishing history. Called a “lion of Texas letters” by the Austin American-Statesman, Shrake was a member of the Texas Film Hall of Fame, and received the Lon Tinkle lifetime achievement award from the Texas Institute of Letters and the Texas Book Festival Bookend Award.
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