Timothy Reese McLaurin was born near Fayetteville, N.C., on 14 December 1953. He joined the United States Marine Corps in 1972, after graduating from Cape Fear Senior High School, and returned home after his enlistment to marry his high school sweetheart and begin working as a Pepsi-Cola salesman. He then divorced and for several years was the proprietor of a traveling snake show, working as Wild Man Mac. He studied at North Carolina Central University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, but dropped out to join the Peace Corps. After living in Tunisia from 1982 to 1983, he returned to UNC-Chapel Hill and received a journalism degree in 1985.
An author of fiction and non-fiction, McLaurin lived in Hillsborough, N.C., and taught creative writing at North Carolina State University. After a 16-year second marriage, he married his third wife Carol Quaine in 2000. McLaurin was diagnosed with a rare form of bone marrow cancer in 1989 and underwent a successful bone marrow transplant the following year. In 1999, he was stricken with esophageal cancer. He died on 11 July 2002, weeks after completing his last novel.
From the guide to the Tim McLaurin Papers, 1981-2004, (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Library. Southern Historical Collection.)
