Alyn, Glen

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.

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