September 7

Born:

1889 - Elmer Hader
American author and illustrator who, as a team with his wife Berta, won the 1948 Caldecott Medal for The Big Snow. He died on this day in 1973.

1900 - Taylor Caldwell
Prolific Anglo-American novelist, now most well known for her work Captains and the Kings.

1903 - Margaret Landon
American writer best remembered for Anna and the King of Siam, which was adapted by Rodgers and Hammerstein into the musical The King and I.

1904 - C.B. (Carroll Burleigh) Colby
American writer of non-fiction books for children.

1927 - Eric Hill
British author and illustrator of children's books, best known for his Spot the Dog series.

1932 - Malcolm Bradbury
English author and academic, whose books tend to center on university life.

1946 - Joe Klein
American journalist known for his anonymously published Primary Colors, which portrayed the first Clinton presidential campaign.

1950 - Peggy Noonan
American political author; former speechwriter for President Ronald Reagan.

1962 - Jennifer Egan
American author whose A Visit From the Goon Squad won the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.




Died:
1892 - John Greenleaf Whittier
1962 - Karen Blixen
1973 - Elmer Hader
1973 - Holling C. Holling
1981 - Christy Brown
1994 - James Clavell
2008 - Gregory Mcdonald
2010 - William H. Goetzmann

September 6

Born:

1869 - Felix Salten
Austrian author best known for the novel Bambi: Ein Lebensgeschichte aus dem Walde (a Life in the Woods.)

1928 - Robert M. Pirsig
American writer and philosopher, well known for his novel Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.

1931 - Bud Shrake
American author of fiction and non-fiction, possibly best known for his collaborations on golf books with Harvey Penick.

1955 - Raymond Benson
American author best known for being the official author of the James Bond novels from 1997 to 2003.

1963 - Alice Sebold
American novelist, most well known for her 2002 work The Lovely Bones.

1964 - Douglas A. Blackmon
American writer whose Slavery By Another Name won a 2009 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction.

1968 - Christopher Brookmyre
Scottish novelist of wit and social commentary.










1969 - Tony DiTerlizzi
American children's author, known for his works The Spiderwick Chronicles and his current Wondla series.

1972 - China Miéville
English fantasy author known for difficult-to-categorize works.






Died:
1907 - Sully Prudhomme
1994 - James Clavell
1997 - P.H. Newby
2007 - Madeline L'Engle

September 5

Born:

1905 - Arthur Koestler
Hungarian-British author and journalist, famous for his anti-totalitarian 1940 novel Darkness at Noon.

1916 - Frank Yerby
African-American historical novelist, known for writing novels set in the antebellum South with a more realistic portrait of black slaves.

1925 - Justin Kaplan
American biographer; Pulitzer Prize winner and two-time National Book Award winner.

1936 - Jonathan Kozol
American non-fiction writer, educator, and activist, best known for his books on public education in the United States.

1950 - Cathy Guisewite
American cartoonist, creator of the popular strip Cathy.

1952 - Paul Fleischman
American author of children's books, winner of the Newbery Medal for Joyful Noise.

1977 - Erin Entrada Kelly

American writer of children's literature who won the 2018 Newbery Medal for her book Hello, Universe.

Died:
1992 - Fritz Leiber
1997 - Leon Edel

September 4

Born:

1908 - Richard Wright
African-American author, best known for his novel Native Son.

1912 - Syd Hoff
Jewish-American cartoonist and children's book author, whose Danny and the Dinosaur is a perennial favorite.

1920 - Craig Claiborne
American restaurant critic (New York Times), food journalist and cookbook author.

1924 - Joan Aiken

English writer of supernatural fiction and children's alternate history novels.

1925 - Forrest Carter
The later identity of Asa Earl Carter, who is less known for his early political career and more for his later books The Education of Little Tree and The Rebel Outlaw: Josey Wales.





Died:
1989 - Georges Simenon
1990 - Lawrence A. Cremin
1991 - Tom Tryon

2022 - Peter Straub

September 3

Born:

1849 - Sarah Orne Jewett 
American novelist and short story writer, best known for her local color works set along or near the southern seacoast of Maine.

1926 - Alison Lurie
American writer who won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction with her 1984 novel Foreign Affairs.

1963 - Malcolm Gladwell
British-born Canadian author of popular books like Blink and The Tipping Point.

1971 - Kiran Desai
Indian author whose book The Inheritance of Loss won the 2006 Man Booker prize.






Died:
1883 - Ivan Turgenev
1942 - Will James
1962 - E.E. Cummings
1982 - Frederic Dannay
2001 - Pauline Kael
2003 - Alan Dugan

September 2

Born:

1820 - Lucretia Hale
American journalist and author, remembered for her stories about the silly Peterkin family.

1850 - Eugene Field
American writer best known for his children's poetry.

1852 - Paul Bourget
French novelist and critic; not greatly translated into English.

1894 - Joseph Roth
Austrian-Jewish writer, best known for his family saga Radeztky March.

1917 - Cleveland Amory
American author and animal rights activist. Many of his books centered on his cat, Polar Bear.

1918 - Allen Drury
American novelist who won the 1960 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for Advise and Consent.

1962 - Jon Berkeley
Dublin-born illustrator and children's author.




Died:
1973 - J.R.R. Tolkien
1993 - Russel B. Nye
1997 - Viktor Frankl
1998 - Allen Drury
2000 - Curt Siodmak
2013 - Frederick Pohl

September 1

Born:

1875 - Edgar Rice Burroughs
American author primarily known as the creator of Tarzan, but more recently as the author of the books that John Carter of Mars was based on.

1877 - Rex Beach
American novelist, playwright and Olympic water polo player.Most well known for The Spoilers, his 1906 novel about the Alaska gold rush, which was adapted to film five times.

1906 - Eleanor Hibbert
British author who wrote under various pen names. Her best-known pseudonyms were Jean Plaidy, Victoria Holt, and Philippa Carr; she also wrote under the names Eleanor Burford, Elbur Ford, Kathleen Kellow, Anne Percival, and Ellalice Tate.

1940 - Annie Ernaux
French writer and professor of literature who won the 2022 Nobel Prize for Literature for "for the courage and clinical acuity with which she uncovers the roots, estrangements and collective restraints of personal memory".

1942 - C.J. Cherryh
American Science fiction and fantasy author, who has won the Hugo award twice.

1945 - Scott Spencer
American author and journalist; two-time National Book Award nominee.





Died:
1967 - Siegfried Sassoon
1970 - François Mauriac

2022 - Barbara Ehrenreich