William S. Burroughs-also interesting...

It's the birthday of William S. Burroughs, (books by this author) born in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1914, the year America entered World War I, who went to a boarding school for rich kids in New Mexico and then to Harvard, kept a revolver and a ferret in his dorm room, lived off a generous stipend his parents gave him and off of money he made selling drugs, moved around the country, and then made his way to New York City, where he hung out at bars in Harlem and Greenwich Village with Beat poets. He became friends with Allen Ginsburg and with Jack Kerouac.
He moved to Texas, grew cotton and marijuana, and then moved to Mexico. He and his wife, Joan, were drinking with friends one night in 1951 when they decided to do a party trick for their friends, one where Joan would balance a glass on her head and William would shoot it off. She put the glass on her head and he fired, but he missed the glass and shot her in the temple. She died.
Burroughs was convicted of criminal negligence but not made to serve jail time. He left Mexico. He later said, "I am faced with the appalling conclusion that I would never have become a writer but for Joan's death. It brought me in contact with the invader, the ugly spirit, and maneuvered me into a lifelong struggle in which I have had no choice but to write my way out."
He wrote many books, including Junkie (1953), and Naked Lunch (1959). He eventually got a job as a university professor, moved to Kansas, and lived until 1997 to be 83 years old.