About

About Bill Crider
Bill Crider was born and brought up in Mexia (that's pronounced Muh-HAY-uh by the natives), Texas. The town's most famous former citizen is Anna Nicole Smith, whom my brother taught in biology class when she was in the ninth grade. Bill have always lived in small Texas towns, unless you count Austin as a large town. It wasn't so large when He lived there, though. Bill attended The University of Texas at Austin for many, many years.

Bill Crider's wife (the lovely Judy) says that "I would never have left grad school if she hadn't forced me to get out and get a real job. I eventually earned my Ph.D. there, writing a dissertation on the hardboiled detective novel", and thereby putting "my mystery-reading habit to good use". Before that, I'd gotten my M.A. at the University of North Texas (in Denton), and afterward I taught English at Howard Payne University for twelve years. Then I moved to scenic Alvin, Texas, where until 2002 I was the Chair of the Division of English and Fine Arts. I retired in August 2002 to become a either a full-time writer or a part-time bum. Take your pick.