Writing is nothing new to Gaines. He has worked as a freelance writer for such publications as Austin's Third Coast Magazine , Texas Monthly , and The Boston Globe , turning out stylish stories about people, film and sports. He also has written movie reviews for The Austin Weekly , a local paper. This lifetime, he's an associate professor and chair of Southwestern's Department of English . It's fun to introduce students to works they wouldn't have seen otherwise and to get them to discuss movies critically and passionately.
Gaines also teaches a course in travel literature, as well as a concentrated writing seminar.
I set up the seminar to encourage students to write about things they care about. These are the most exciting classes for me. As a kid growing up in Grand Prairie, Texas, Gaines played baseball as much as he read books. We were the entire Great Books Guild. When he wasn't buried in the Complete Sherlock Holmes , he pored over newspaper sports pages or 1940s Time and Newsweek magazines in the town library.