Thornburg enrolled at Illinois Wesleyan College in Bloomington, Illinois, where he had a five-page short story published in the Methodist Student Movement's magazine. Thornburg was more interested in painting, and transferred to the University of Iowa to study art. Thornburg graduated from the University of Iowa with a Fine Arts degree. Thornburg briefly enrolled in the Iowa Graduate Writers Workshop before dropping out. He worked in a variety of jobs before devoting himself to writing full-time (or at least in tandem with his cattle farm in the Ozarks) in 1973.
