Thursday, December 31, 2015

December 31

Born:



1931 - Bob Shaw
Science fiction author from Northern Ireland.









1933 - Edward Bunker
American author of crime fiction.








1945 - Connie Willis
American science fiction author; winner of eleven Hugo and Nebula awards.








1949 - Susan Shwartz
American author of alternate history and fantasy.








1965 - Nicholas Sparks
American author and screenwriter, known for romantic fiction.








1968 - Junot Díaz
Dominican-American writer, winner of the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao.




1974 - Joe Abercrombie 
British fantasy writer, author of the First Law trilogy.





Died:
1980 - Marshal McLuhan
2008 - Donald Westlake

Wednesday, December 30, 2015

December 30

Born:


1865 - Rudyard Kipling
English author best known for his tales of British in India, winner of the 1907 Nobel Prize in Literature "in consideration of the power of observation, originality of imagination, virility of ideas and remarkable talent for narration which characterize the creations of this world-famous author."








1910 - Paul Bowles
American expatriate composer and author.








1922 - Jane Langton
American children's writer, whose The Fledgling was a Newbery Honor book.




1946 - Patti Smith
American singer-songwriter and poet; influential member of the early New York punk scene.







1947 - James Kahn
American writer best known for his novelizations of films.



1950 - Lewis Shiner
American writer of science fiction, cyberpunk and fantasy.









1952 - Melissa Fay Greene
American author of various non-fiction books.







1961 - Douglas Coupland
Canadian novelist best known for his work Generation X.









1961 - Sean Hannity
American conservative political commentator.







1963 - Chandler Burr
American journalist, author and museum curator.




Died:
1944 - Romain Rolland
2002 - Mary Wesley
2003 - John Gregory Dunne
2005 - Rona Jaffe
2011 - Ronald Searle

Tuesday, December 29, 2015

December 29

Born:



1915 - Robert Ruark
American author and big game hunter.



1922 - William Gaddis
American author, multiple winner of the National Book Award.









1943 - Molly Bang
American author and illustrator of children's books.



Died:
1894 - Christina Rossetti
1924 - Carl Spitteler
1926 - Ranier Maria Rilke
1949 - Tyler Dennett

Monday, December 28, 2015

December 28

Born:



1895 - Carol Ryrie Brink
American author of children's and adult fiction, winner of the Newbery Medal for Caddie Woodlawn.







1919 - Emily Cheney Neville
American author whose first book, It's Like This, Cat, won the 1964 Newbery Medal.




1922 - Stan Lee
American comic book author, former president of Marvel Comics.







1932 - Manuel Puig
Argentine author known for novels like Kiss of the Spider Woman.








1953 - Charlie Pierce
American sportswriter, political blogger and frequent contestant on NPR's Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me.







1958 - Gilles Leroy
French writer, winner of the 2007 Prix Goncourt for Alabama Song.





Died:
1935 - Clarence Day
1945 - Theodore Dreiser
1986 - John D. MacDonald
1993 - William L. Shirer
2001 - William X. Kienzle
2004 - Susan Sontag

Sunday, December 27, 2015

December 27

Born:



1896 - Louis Bromfield
American author and conservationist, winner of the Pulitzer Prize.








1904 - Ingri Parin d'Aulaire
Norwegian-born American children's book author who primarily worked as a team with her Swiss husband Edgar.







1907 - Mary Howard
Pen name of British romance novelist Mary Mussi.





? - Patricia Gaffney
No birth year given for this American romance novelist.







1957 - Greg Mortensen
American humanitarian and author of the bestseller Three Cups of Tea.








1959 - Gerina Dunwich
Professional astrologer and New Age author.








1966 - Wendy Coakley-Thompson
American author whose fiction centers on race issues.








1969 - Sarah Vowell
American author and social commentator.







1982 - Erin E. Stead
American illustrator of children's books; winner of the 2011 Caldecott for her work on A Sick Day for Amos McGee.





Died:
1834 - Charles Lamb
1974 - Amy Vanderbilt
1986 - George Dangerfield
1983 - Dumas Malone
1992 - Kay Boyle
1994 - Fanny Craddock
1997 - Brendan Gill
2016 - Carrie Fisher

Saturday, December 26, 2015

December 26

Born:



1716 - Thomas Gray
English poet best known for his "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard."








1819 - E.D.E.N. Southworth
American writer and contemporary of Harriet Beecher Stowe, very widely read in her time.




1891 - Henry Miller
American writer and painter whose novels are a mixture of styles.








1894 - Jean Toomer
American poet and novelist, important figure in the Harlem Renaissance.








 1942 - Catherine Coulter
American author of romantic suspense fiction and historical romances.







1948 - Jean Echenoz
French writer who son the Prix Goncourt in 1995 for I'm Gone (Je m'en vais.)



1956 - David Sedaris
American humorist and author of semi-autobiographical essays.








1964 - Elizabeth Kostova
American author best known for her debut novel The Historian.



Died:
1981 - Amber Reeves
2012 - Gerald McDermott

Friday, December 25, 2015

December 25

Born:



1781? - Lady Morgan Sydney
Irish novelist, author of The Wild Irish Girl.








1869 - Charles Finger
British author whose Tales from Silver Lands won the 1925 Newbery Medal.



1890 - Robert Ripley
American entrepreneur; creator of the Ripley's Believe it or Not! franchise.








1908 - Quentin Crisp
English writer, raconteur and memoirist.








1925 - Carlos Castaneda
Peruvian-American author, known for his Don Juan books.








1935 - Anne Roiphe
American feminist writer of fiction, non-fiction and memoirs.




Died:
1935 - Paul Bourget
1938 - Karel Čapek
1963 - Tristan Tzara
1992 - Monica Dickens
2011 - Simms Taback

Thursday, December 24, 2015

December 24

Born:



1822 -  Matthew Arnold
British poet, known for works like "Dover Beach."








1880 - Johnny Gruelle
American artist and children's book author; the creator of Raggedy Ann.








1891 - Feodor Stepanovich Rojankovsky
Russian emigre illustrator who won the Caldecott Medal in 1956 for his work of Frog Went A-Courtin'.




1895 - Noel Streatfield
English children's author, known for the "Shoes" series.





1910 - Fritz Leiber
American author of fantasy, horror and science fiction.





1920 - Franco Lucentini
Italian writer whose novel The Sunday Woman was made into a popular film.








1927 - Mary Higgins Clark
American author of suspense novels and minority owner of the New Jersey Nets.









1945 - Nicholas Meyer
American author and film director, known for his novel The Seven-Per-Cent Solution.











1948 - Juan Felipe Herrera
American poet, the first Chicano Poet Laureate starting in 2015.



1952 - Christopher Buckley
American political satirist and novelist; son of William F. Buckley Jr.








1970 - Adam Haslett
American author whose debut collection of short stories was a National Book Award and Pulitzer finalist.



1973 - Stephenie Meyer
American young adult author. Yeah, all I'm gonna say there.










1976 - Evan Osnos
American journalist, winner of the 2014 National Book Award for non-fiction for his book Age of Ambition: Chasing Fortune, Truth and Faith in the New China.





Died:
1863 - William Makepeace Thackeray
1961 - Robert Hillyer
1991 - Virginia Sorensen
1992 - Peyo
1993 - Norman Vincent Peale
2008 - Harold Pinter
2010 - Elisabeth Beresford
2016 - Richard Adams