Jim Harrison

Jim Harrison was born on December 11, 1937, in Grayling, Michigan. He received his BA and MA in comparative literature from Michigan State University.

Harrison is the author of more than twenty works of fiction and more than a dozen collections of poetry, including Dead Man’s Float (Copper Canyon Press, 2015); Songs of Unreason (Copper Canyon Press, 2011); and Braided Creek: A Conversation in Poetry (Copper Canyon Press, 2003), with Ted Kooser. He is best known for his collection of novellas Legends of the Fall (Delacorte Press/S. Lawrence, 1979), which he adapted into a screenplay for the 1994 film. He also authored essays and works of journalism.

Harrison is the recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. He was elected into the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 2007. He lived in both Montana and in Patagonia, Arizona, where he died on March 26, 2016.