Don Graham is a member of the faculty of the English Department at the University of Texas at Austin and has also taught classes at the Michener Center for Writers. He is the author of many books, including Cowboys and Cadillacs: How Hollywood Looks at Texas, No Name on the Bullet: A Biography of Audie Murphy, Giant Country: Essays on Texas, Kings of Texas: The 150-Year Saga of an American Ranching Empire, and, most recently, State of Minds: Texas Culture & Its Discontents. In 2005 he received the Best General Criticism Award from the City/Regional Magazine Association for his literary columns in Texas Monthly, where he is Writer-at-Large. A new book on the making of the movie Giant is forthcoming from St. Martin’s Press in 2016.
“To be honest, I’d say that in the end the only thing that ultimately matters in story writing is simply trying to create a strong and original narrative, plus always aiming to make every story a little tour de force, which is a what a truly successful short story should be, possessing that intensity—it’s why a story is so much different than a novel and special in a way.”
