“It’s not about genius. It’s about work.”

Steven Pressfield was an advertising copywriter, schoolteacher, truck driver, bartender, oilfield roustabout, attendant in a mental hospital, fruit-picker, and screenwriter. He wrote for 27 years before publishing his first novel. His struggles to make a living as an author, including the period when he was homeless and living out of the back of his car, are detailed in his book The War of Art.

Pressfield’s first book, The Legend of Bagger Vance, was published in 1995, and was made into a 2000 film of the same name directed by Robert Redford and starring Will Smith, Charlize Theron, and Matt Damon.

His second novel, Gates of Fire (1998), is about the Spartans and the battle at Thermopylae. It is taught at the U.S. Military Academy, the United States Naval Academy, and the Marine Corps Basic School at Quantico.

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