March 24

Born:

1855 - Olive Schreiner
South African author best remembered for The Story of an African Farm.

1916 - Donald Hamilton
American author of pulp spy fiction, notably his Matt Helm series.

1919 - Lawrence Ferlinghetti
American poet and founder of San Francisco's City Lights Booksellers & Publishers.

1920 - Mary Stolz
American children's author, two-time Newbery Honor winner.

1923 - Michael Legat
British author of romance novels and guides for writers.

1924 - Vincent Cronin
British author of cultural histories and biography. Son of the novelist A.J. Cronin.

1926 - Dario Fo
Italian playwright, actor, director, and winner of the 1997 Nobel Prize in Literature because he "emulates the jesters of the Middle Ages in scourging authority and upholding the dignity of the downtrodden."

1970 - Erica Kennedy
African-American author, journalist and singer.





Died:
1882 - Henry W. Longfellow
1905 - Jules Verne
1993 - John Hersey

March 23

Born:

1881 - Roger Martin du Gard
French author; winner of the 1937 Nobel Prize for Literature "for the artistic power and truth with which he has depicted human conflict as well as some fundamental aspects of contemporary life in his novel cycle Les Thibault."

1912 - Eleanor Cameron
American librarian and children's author.

1947 - Elizabeth Ann Scarborough
American science fiction author, Nebula Award winner and frequent collaborator with Anne McCaffrey.

1952 - Kim Stanley Robinson
American science fiction author best known for his Mars trilogy.

1968 - Mitch Cullin
American writer of Scotch-Irish and Cherokee descent.




Died:
1842 - Stendahl
1968 - Edwin O'Connor
1969 - Bernadotte Everly Schmitt
2001 - Robert Laxalt

March 22

Born:

1846 - Randolph Caldecott
British artist and illustrator; influential in children's book art. The Caldecott Medal is named in his honor.

1908 - Louis L'Amour
American author primarily known for his pioneering work in the western genre.

1910 - Nicholas Montserrat
British author whose work in the Royal Naval Reserve came out in his sea stories.

1931 - William Shatner
American sometime actor and author of the TekWar series of science fiction books.

1941 - Billy Collins
American Poet Laureate from 2001 to 2003.

1946 - Rudy Rucker
American mathematician, computer scientist and one of the founders of cyberpunk fiction.

1947 - James Patterson
American author of thrillers, most famously his Alex Cross series.



Died:
1832 - Johann Wilhelm von Goethe
1991 - Paul Engle 

March 21

Born:

1905 - Phyllis McGinley
American author of children's books and poetry; winner of the 1960 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry.

1953 - David Wisniewski
American children's author and illustrator who won the 1997 Caldecott for his book Golem.




Died:
1930 - Claude H. Van Tyne
1997 - Wilbert Awdry
2013 - Chinua Achebe

March 20

Born:

1828 - Henrik Willem Ibsen 
Norwegian playwright and poet, considered the "Father of realism."

1904 - B.F. Skinner 
American psychologist and author, some of whose books were written for a popular audience.

1937 - Lois Lowry 
American children's author best known for her two Newbery Award winning books, Number the Stars and The Giver.

1954 - Louis Sachar 
American children's author whose Holes and Sideways Stories from Wayside School are his best known works.

1955 - Nina Kiriki Hoffman
American fantasy, scifi and horror author.

1959 - Mary Roach 
American author whose popular science books always have a whimsical edge.1

1968 - A.J. Jacobs 
American journalist and author who whites about his immersive life experiences.




1. Especially the footnotes.

Died:
1994 - Lewis Grizzard
2010 - Ai

March 19

Born:

1821 - Richard Francis Burton
British explorer known in the literary world for his translations of eastern texts, most notably The Thousand and One Nights.

1916 - Irving Wallace
American best-selling author of novels and non-fiction.

1933 - Philip Roth
American novelist; multiple winner of the National book award, as well as the 1997 Pulitzer in Fiction for American Pastoral.

1950 - James Redfield
American author whose new-agey fiction book The Celestine Prophecy was a huge hit in the 1990s.




Died:
1948 - Maude Howe Elliott
1950 - Edgar Rice Burroughs
2008 - Arthur C. Clarke

March 18

Born:

1842 - Stéphane Mallarmé
French symbolist poet whose work inspired some of the revolutionary art groups of the early 20th century.

1892 - Robert P.T. Coffin
American poet; winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1938.

1915 - Richard Condon
American novelist who worked heavily in the political satire genre, best known for The Manchurian Candidate and the Prizzi books.

1927 - George Plimpton
American journalist best known for his sports writing and founding of The Paris Review.

1932 - John Updike
American writer whose two Pulitzers were for books in the Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom series.

1945 - Joy Fielding 
Canadian novelist and actress, most of whose works are set in large American cities.

1948 - Susan Patron
American children's book author; winner of the 2007 Caldecott for The Higher Power of Lucky.

1953 - Franz Wright
American Pulitzer Prize-winning poet whose father, James Wright, also won in the same category.




Died:
1768 - Laurence Sterne
1956 - Louis Bromfield
1986 - Bernard Malamud
1996 - Odysseas Elytis