21 Facts About Walter Tevis

Walter Tevis's books have been translated into at least 18 languages.

Tevis was born in San Francisco, California, in 1928 to Anna Elizabeth "Betty" and Walter Stone Tevis, an appraiser, growing up in the Sunset District, across the street from Golden Gate Park.

Walter Tevis developed a rheumatic heart condition, so his parents placed him in the Stanford Children's Convalescent home, for a year, during which time they returned to Kentucky, where the Tevis family had been given an early land grant in Madison County.

Walter Tevis made friends with Toby Kavanaugh, a fellow high school student, and learned to shoot pool in the Kavanaugh mansion in Lawrenceburg.

Walter Tevis became a carpenter's mate, serving on the USS Hamul in Okinawa.

Walter Tevis later attended the Iowa Writers' Workshop, where he received an MFA in creative writing in 1960.

Walter Tevis taught classes in fields from the sciences and English to physical education in small-town Kentucky high schools in Science Hill, Hawesville, Irvine, and Carlisle.

Walter Tevis taught at Northern Kentucky University, the University of Kentucky, and Southern Connecticut State University.

Walter Tevis taught English literature and creative writing at Ohio University in Athens, Ohio, from 1965 to 1978, where he was named University Professor.

Walter Tevis wrote more than two dozen short stories for a variety of magazines.

Walter Tevis followed it with The Man Who Fell to Earth, published in 1963.

Walter Tevis drew from elements of his childhood in The Man Who Fell to Earth, as noted by James Sallis, writing in The Boston Globe:.

One of the many other things it is, in Walter Tevis's own words, is "a very disguised autobiography," the tale of his removal as a child from San Francisco, "the city of light," to rural Kentucky, and of the childhood illness that long confined him to bed, leaving him, once recovered, weak, fragile, and apart.

Walter Tevis was a nominee for the Nebula Award for Best Novel in 1980 for Mockingbird.

Walter Tevis wrote The Steps of the Sun, The Queen's Gambit, and The Color of Money, a sequel to The Hustler.

Walter Tevis married Jamie Griggs in 1957, and they remained together for over twenty years before getting divorced.

Walter Tevis was a frequent smoker, gambler and alcoholic, and his works often included these vices as central themes.

Walter Tevis was able to overcome his alcohol habit in the 1970s with help from Alcoholics Anonymous.

Walter Tevis spent his last years in New York City as a full-time writer, where he died of lung cancer in 1984.

In 2003, Jamie Griggs Walter Tevis published her autobiography, My Life with the Hustler.

Walter Tevis died December 9,2016, at Bellevue Hospital in New York City, in an apparent suicide.