Editing Luke Rhinehart (section)

===Early life===
George Powers Cockcroft was born on November 15, 1932, in [[Albany, New York]], to Donald and Elizabeth Cockcroft, both college graduates, his mother from [[Wellesley College]].<ref name=guardian1/> He was raised in Albany, where his father was an electrical engineer,<ref name=guardian1/> and his ancestry included Vermont political notables.<ref>As Tanya Gold noted for an interview piece in ''[[The Guardian]]'', "the creator of The Dice Man was born to New England grandees"; a [[great-grandfather]] and a grandfather were [[Vermont]]'s [[Governor]] and [[Chief Justice]] of its [[Vermont Supreme Court|Supreme Court]], respectively, in their time. See Gold, ''[[The Guardian]]'', 4 March 2017, op. cit.</ref> He attended [[The Albany Academy]], graduating in 1950, and received a BA from [[Cornell University]] in 1954 and an MA from [[Columbia University]] in 1956. In 1964, he received a PhD in American literature from Columbia. After obtaining his PhD, he went into teaching. During his years as a university professor he taught, among other things, courses in [[Zen]] and [[Western literature]].

In 1969, while Cockcroft was teaching a study abroad program on the island of [[Mallorca]], an Englishman starting a new publishing house stopped at a cafe in the same village, [[Deià]], and was given a partial manuscript of ''The Dice Man'' to read by Cockcroft. Cockcroft was subsequently offered an advance payment for publication. Shortly afterwards, Cockcroft was encouraged by his course Director to take an early sabbatical from his teaching duties. He remained in Mallorca to complete the novel, after which the publisher sold the American rights to the novel for a large sum, and within a year the film rights, allowing Cockcroft to retire from teaching and become a full time novelist.