Author

Lawrence Wright

Lawrence Wright is an author, screenwriter, playwright, and a staff writer for the New Yorker. He has also written for Rolling Stone and Southern Voices, a publication of the Southern Regional Council in Atlanta. His history of Al Qaeda, The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 (Knopf, 2006), spent eight weeks on the New York Times best-seller list and was translated into 25 languages. The book was nominated for the National Book Award and won numerous awards, including the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction. Wright’s one-man play, My Trip to al-Qaeda, was made into a documentary film and aired on HBO. Wright’s seventh book, Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood and the Prison of Belief (Knopf 2013), is based on a profile he wrote of the writer-director Paul Haggis in the New Yorker that won the National Magazine Award in 2012.
Health |
February 1, 1992

Are Men Necessary?

To hear some women tell it, nature created two genders, one nearly perfect and the other badly flawed. I wonder whether they’re right.

By Lawrence Wright

Feature |
February 1, 1990

The Price of Peace

With the cold war fading into history, Fort Worth’s General Dynamics now has to regard peace as not merely an ideal but an economic reality.

By Lawrence Wright

Feature |
November 1, 1989

Hotter’n Hell

Cycling a hundred miles is a hard enough way to spend a Saturday. It’s even harder in Wichita Falls in August.

By Lawrence Wright

A conceptual photo illustration of a model stand-in for Reverend Walker Railey, with a shadow of a cross obscuring his face.
True Crime |
January 1, 1988

The Sins of Walker Railey

He had a wife and a girlfriend. His ambition was unchecked. He tried to commit suicide. But when I came face to face with the minister of my boyhood church, the sin we talked about was murder.

By Lawrence Wright

Feature |
May 31, 1987

Culture Club

Once San Antonio’s elite took pride in their support of the city’s fine symphony. When the cream of that elite, the Symphony Society board, abruptly canceled the upcoming season, it was time for some soul-searching.

By Lawrence Wright

Fatherhood |
March 1, 1986

Kwell or Be Kwelled

Cradle Cap was nothing, diaper rash was a breeze. But when my son brought home head lice—well, it made the plague look good.

By Lawrence Wright

Fatherhood |
December 1, 1985

I Want to Be Alone

When the wife goes back to work and the husband takes on chores and children, the real problem is not laundry or lunch boxes. It’s the battle between love and ambition.

By Lawrence Wright

Fatherhood |
June 30, 1985

No Babies Here

When the time comes for the last child in the family to relinquish her tattered baby blanket, she’s not the only one who’s a little shaky about it.

By Lawrence Wright

Being Texan |
November 1, 1982

Easy Street

Houston’s black elite have come a very long way to live in MacGregor Way, the swankiest black neighborhood in Texas, but they still don’t feel safe.

By Lawrence Wright

Feature |
June 30, 1981

Space Cadet

Astronauts used to be dashing pilots. Now they’re doctors, scientists, and...sanitary engineers.

By Lawrence Wright

Media |
May 31, 1981

Shades of Gray

Thomas Thompson won his Blood and Money libel suit, but the trial left one question unanswered: how much of his imagination is a nonfiction writer allowed to use?

By Lawrence Wright

Feature |
December 1, 1980

I, Claus

Better not shout, cry, or pout, ‘cause we’re telling you why, after all these years, Santa Claus is still coming to town.

By Lawrence Wright