Tim Tharp Bio

Tim Tharp was born in 1957 in Henryetta, Oklahoma to his loving parents. At the

age of seven his father landed a job as associate editor for a city newspaper and the

family was forced to move to Midwest City, Oklahoma. At a young age he found joy in

creating two comic strips: Monster Mag and Bush Miller. Bush Miller was a story about

an up and coming baseball player. In 5th grade he began writing fiction stories when he

decided that he wanted to become both a professional writer along and the greatest

football player ever (Tim Tharp).

Tharp was awarded with the position of editor for his school newspaper and

wrote mysteries. Growing up he looked up to writers such as Ernest Hemingway, John

Steinbeck, Charles Dickens, and Kurt Vonnegut. These writers influenced him to write

short stories in his free time. After graduating from high school he attended Oklahoma

State University and majored in journalism but later changed it to psychology. Two years

into college he realized college was not a good fit for him and decided to go see the

world (Tim Tharp).

He first hitchhiked to Chicago to see his longtime friend then traveled to

California and then back to Oklahoma. Tharp wanted to see more of the world and got a

pickup truck and rode down to Florida with a friend he met in college. With all these new

experiences, Tharp still felt like something was missing so he decided to return to

college. After another semester of college he thought it was too stressful and dropped

out. For five years he read, history, psychology, and philosophy books while working in a

rubber hose factory, then later on at a record store (Tim Tharp).

Tharp attempted to get his short stories published but was rejected and decided to go

back to college and study literature. He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree from

the Oklahoma University, and was awarded with the Gloria D. Cooksey Memorial Award

and the Dr. Betty Evans Scholarship for superior fiction writing. Soon after he got

admitted into Brown University Graduate Fiction Writing Program. He taught an

undergraduate fiction writing class and realized that he loved to teach (Tim Tharp).

Tharp taught at St. Edwards University in Austin, Texas, and Redlands College in

El Reno, Oklahoma, before he landed his first full-time teaching position at Oklahoma

State University. In 1999 his first book was published called Falling Dark, which was a

story about a family whose lives become shattered after the senseless killing of their

husband and father. This book won the Milkweed National Fiction Prize award and

helped to jumpstart his writing career. Afterwards he wrote a young adult novel about

two high school football players called Knights of the Hill Country, which was named to

the American Library Associations best books of the year list and also won the

Oklahoma Book Award. Currently Tharp instructs a class at Rose State College and is

also the co-chairman of the Write of Spring High School Writing Workshop (Tim

Tharp).
Works Cited

"About." Tim Tharp. N.p., 02 Dec. 2011. Web. 17 Mar. 2017.

<timtharp.wordpress.com/about/>.NB

Tharp, Tim. Knights of the Hill Country. New York: Ember, 2013. Print.