Thomas Jay Drury is an American writer. Drury was born in Iowa, in 1956, grew up in the small town of Swaledale and received his bachelor's degree in journalism from the University of Iowa in 1980. For the next five years, Drury worked at a series of newspapers, including the Danbury News-Times, the Litchfield County Times, and The Providence Journal until he was accepted to the graduate writing program at Brown University in 1985. After his short stories were published in Harper's Magazine, the North American Review, and The New Yorker, he was contacted by Sarah Chalfant of the Wylie Agency.