John Irving
Irving was born in Exeter, New Hampshire. His parents divorced before he was born. His name was changed when his mother married again. His step-father was a teacher at Phillips Exeter Academy. When he graduated from there, Irving went to the University of Pittsburgh. After one year there, he went to study in Vienna, Austria. He came back to the United States to study at the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop. One of his teachers there was Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.. In Iowa, he wrote his first novel, Setting Free the Bears.