Glen Alyn (1947-2000), author, musician, Vietnam War veteran, and Austin Writers’ League board member, was born Alan Glenn Myers on May 24, 1947 in Fort Worth and grew up in various Texas cities. In 1968, he and his friend Bill Oliver floated the longest water approach to Dallas ever attempted, down the Mississippi River. He telephoned in his weekly crew log entries and they were published in the Hannibal (Missouri) Courier-Post and several Texas newspapers. Alyn was drafted into the Vietnam War and served in the Headquarters Company of 3rd Brigade, 4th Infantry Division, 1969-1970. He returned to Texas and graduated cum laude from the University of Texas at Austin in 1974. For Alyn’s 27th birthday that year the Armadillo World Headquarters in Austin held a benefit for Mance Lipscomb, the Texas sharecropper and blues songster. Alyn’s most famous literary work is the life story of Lipscomb, an extensive research and oral interview venture that temporarily moved Alyn to the musician’s hometown of Navasota, Texas. A limited edition of the biography was published in 1981.
In 1982, Alyn and his family moved to New Mexico, where he established the first organic fertilizer company. He lived there until 1989, when he returned to Austin to be a musician and writer. It was around this time that he changed his name. In Austin he led the Glen Alyn Earnest Tub Band. In 1990, Alyn joined the Austin Writers’ League and signed a contract for the publication of his Lipscomb story, I Say Me for a Parable, the following year. The book won the Violet Crown Award for Best in Literary Category, the ASCAP Deems Taylor Award for Best Music Book of 1993, and was nominated for the BMI Ralph J. Gleason award. A paperback version of the book came out in 1995. Alyn also wrote a poetic narrative, Huckleberry Minh: A Walk Through Dreamland, published in 1999. That same year, Alyn attempted to complete the Mississippi River trek he began in 1968. He died in a car wreck, along with his daughter, 19-year-old Sequoia Myers, in June 2000.
Source: Alford, Andy. Writer/musician possessed humor, adventurous spirit. Austin American-Statesman, June 7, 2000, Metro & State section.
From the guide to the Alyn, Glen Papers 92-002; 92-104; 92-120; 93-199; 93-344; 94-052; 95-027., 1990-1994, (Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, The University of Texas at Austin)
