Legendary Larry

For decades, Larry McMurtry has kept the same daily ritual. Most mornings, he feeds sheet after sheet of paper into his Hermes 3000 typewriter. He’ll write for hours. But his routine was interrupted by a heart attack and quadruple bypass surgery in the early ’90s that left him shattered and depressed. McMurtry tried to write again but says he felt like a fax machine. So, he stopped trying. He credits Diana Ossana with prodding him to get back in the saddle. McMurtry refused to write without Ossana’s help. So, together, they wrote two novels and several TV miniseries before adapting Annie Proulx’s short story Brokeback Mountain into an Academy Award-winning screenplay. He’s writing on his own again, but Thursday the two writers will speak at The Nasher Sculpture Center, 2001 Flora St., as part of the NasherSalon 2008 Lecture Series. The lectures starts at 8 p.m., and an audience Q&A will follow. Tickets were $45, but the event sold out in just more than an hour. Don’t despair; call 214-242-5108 to get on the waiting list for tickets. Visit nashersalonseries.org for more details.

Thu., July 17, 2008