Author Harry Crews Dies at 76

In Gainesville, Florida famed author of A Feast of Snakes passed away at the age of 76 due to his ongoing battle with neuropathy.

No news about the whereabouts of his novel that was in progress called The Wrong Affair, along with many other reportedly unpublished novels has been reported by any major news industry, but the literary community is surely hopeful that he has left more pieces of himself for the rest of us to enjoy.

Harry Crews was a writer's writer, often ignored by the mainstream but hailed as the Southern Bukowski by many. He was a Marine and went through the Korean War. Won the battle against alcoholism and many other near death experiences.

His work includes 17 published novels, a film adaptation of his work The Hawk Is Dying, and a documentary fittingly called Survival Is Triumph Enough. He is also widely known from his columns in Esquire and Playboy covering controversial individuals such as Charles Bronson and David Duke.

Tough life or not, it never stopped him from doing the things he wanted and helping fellow writers out along the way. He was known for his entertaining speeches at universites, at times fitted with a mohawk and turning it into more of performance to motivate other writers.

"A writer's job is to get naked, to hide nothing, to look away from nothing, to look at it. To not blink, to not be embarrassed by it or ashamed of it. Strip it down and let's get to where the blood is, where the bone is." - Harry Crews, 06/07/1935 - 03/28/2012

Yesterday, the world lost another great.