Biography
He graduated as a theater major from Reed College in 1973. He credits his time at the college for helping him find and claim his identity as a writer.
Overmyer joined the crew of The Wire as a consulting producer and writer for the fourth season in 2006. He had previously worked with series creator David Simon on Homicide: Life on the Street where the two became friends. Overmyer wrote the teleplays for the episodes "Margin of Error" and "Misgivings". from stories he co-wrote with producer Ed Burns. Overmyer was hired to replace George Pelecanos as a full-time writer and producer. Simon has said that he was impressed with Overmyer's writing, particularly in synthesising the story for "Margin of Error" as the episode is the height of the show's political storyline but must also progress other plot threads. As a member of the fourth season writing staff, Overmyer has been credited as overseeing the domestic storyline of Jimmy McNulty and "smartly fleshing out" some of his key scenes. Overmyer left the crew at the end of the fourth season. Overmyer and the writing staff won the Writers Guild of America Award for Best Dramatic Series at the February 2008 ceremony and the 2007 Edgar Award for Best Television Feature/Mini-Series Teleplay for their work on the fourth season.
Overmyer collaborated with Simon again on the HBO drama Treme. They co-created the series which is about post-Katrina New Orleans. Overmyer lives part-time in New Orleans and used his experience in navigating the "ornate oral tradition" of the city's stories. The show focuses on a working-class neighborhood and is smaller in scope than The Wire. Production for the first season began in November 2009.
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“The death of Irving, which at any other time would have attracted universal attention, having occurred while these things were transpiring, went almost unobserved. I shall have to read of it in the biography of authors.”
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