John D. MacDonald

Roger Ebert is nowadays one of the great presences on Twitter (@ebertchicago). And he just recently pointed followers to a piece he had written in 1976, a profile of the writer John D. MacDonald. It's nice to drop in again on the creator of Travis McGee. 'In 1945, his sixth year in the Army, John D. MacDonald sent a short story home to his wife. She typed it up and submitted it to Story magazine, which bought it for $25. "1 thought that was pretty damned good," MacDonald recalls. "I figured, hell, if I could sell about four stories a week, I could live pretty well."' More...