Lars Eighner

Who is Lars Eighner?

Lars Eighner is the author of Travels with Lizbeth, a memoir of homelessness in the American Southwest during the late 1980s; the included essay "On Dumpster Diving," which is widely anthologized both at full length and in abridged form under the title "My Daily Dives in the Dumpster"; Pawn to Queen Four, a novel; Lavender Blue: How to Write and Sell Gay Men's Erotica, also published as Elements of Arousal; Gay Cosmos, a work of gay theory; and numerous short works of gay men's erotica, collected under various titles.

Lars Eighner was born Laurence Vail Eighner in Corpus Christi, Texas, the son of Alice Elizabeth Vail Eighner and Lawrence Clifton Eighner, and the grandson of the Texas poets Alice Ewing Vail and John Arthur Vail. He grew up in Houston, Texas, and was graduated from Lamar High School in 1966. He studied creative writing under George Williams of Rice University at the Corpus Christi Fine Arts Colony, and attended the University of Texas at Austin, doing major work in ethnic studies.