October 25

Born:

1875 - Carolyn Sherwin Bailey
American children's author who won the 1947 Newbery Medal for Miss Hickory.

1914 - John Berryman
American poet, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry and the National Book Award.

1939 - Fred Marcellino
American book jacket designer and later children's book author and illustrator.

1941 - Anne Tyler
American novelist whose book Breathing Lessons won the 1989 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

1975 - Zadie Smith
British novelist, essayist and short story writer; winner of the 2006 Orange Prize for Fiction.




Died:
1400 - Geoffrey Chaucer
1902 - Frank Norris
1957 - Edward Plunkett
1967 - Margaret Ayer Barnes
1989 - Mary McCarthy

October 24

Born:

1927 - Barbara J. Robinson
American author best known for her children's books, like The Best Christmas Pageant Ever.

1932 - Stephen Covey
American educator, author and speaker, best known for his book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.

1933 - Norman Rush

American writer whose experiences in the Peace Corps influence his novels, which are set in Rwanda.

1952 - David Weber
American science fiction and fantasy author, known for the Honor Harrington series.

1956 - Dale Maharidge
American author and journalist whose book And Their Children After Them won the 1990 Pulitzer Prize for General Non-fiction.




Died:
1948 - Frederic L. Paxson
1970 - Richard Francis Hofstadter
1980 - Ingri Parin d'Aulaire
2007 - Ian Middleton

October 23

Born:

1897 - Marjorie Flack
American children's author, best known for her book The Story About Ping.

1904 - Harvey Penick
American golf professional, whose instructional Little Red Book became a bestseller late in his life.

1942 - Michael Crichton
American author of bestselling thrillers.

1961 - Laurie Halse Anderson
American author of children's and young adult novels.

1963 - Gordon Korman
Canadian author of children's and young adult fiction.

1965 - Augusten Burroughs 
American writer best known for his memoir Running With Scissors.

1969 - Trudi Canavan
Australian fantasy author, best known for her Black Magician trilogy and Age of the Five.

1974 - Aravind Adiga
Indian author and journalist whose debut novel, The White Tiger, won the 2008 Man Booker Prize.



Died:
1939 - Zane Grey
1964 - Frank Luther Mott
1990 - Thomas Williams

October 22

Born:

1870 - Ivan Bunin
Russian writer, first from his country to win the Nobel Prize in
Literature, in 1933 "for his bold and ingenious revival of dramatic and scenic art."

1919 - Doris Lessing
British writer, winner of the 2007 Nobel Prize in Literature for being "that epicist of the female experience, who with scepticism, fire and visionary power has subjected a divided civilisation to scrutiny."

1920 - Timothy Leary
American psychologist and writer known for his advocacy of the use of psychedelic drugs.

1935 - Ann Rule
American author of true crime non-fiction.

1946 - Deepak Chopra
Indian-born American physician and writer.

1948 - Debbie Macomber 
American author of romance novels, known for her many different series.






Died:
1883 - Thomas Mayne Reid
1988 - Cynthia Freeman
1995 - Kingsley Amis
1998 - Eric Ambler
2016 - Sheri S. Tepper

October 21

Born:

1772 -Samuel T. Coleridge
English Romantic poet, best known for his works The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Kubla Khan.

1894 - Edogawa Rampo
Pen name of Japanese author Tarō Hirai, who helped developed Japanese mystery fiction.

1914 - Martin Gardner
American popular math and science writer, who wrote a math games column in Scientific American for many years.

1929 - Ursula K. LeGuin
American science fiction and fantasy author, multiple winner of both the Hugo and the Nebula awards.

1940 - Frances FitzGerald
American journalist and author, best known for her book Fire in the Lake: The Vietnamese and the Americans in Vietnam.

1947 - Ai
American poet Florence Anthony, who legally changed her name to Ai Ogawa and won the 1999 National Book Award for Poetry for Vice: New and Selected Poems.

1947 - Mary Pipher
American psychologist and author.

1952 - Patti Davis
American actress and author, daughter of former President Ronald Reagan.

1956 - Carrie Fisher 
American actress and author, most well known for her roles in the Star Wars series.






Died:
1969 - Jack Kerouac
2012 - George McGovern

October 20

Born:

1854 - Arthur Rimbaud
French poet, most of whose works were created while he was still in his late teens.

1891 - Samuel Flagg Bemis
American historian and biographer, winner of two Pulitzer Prizes - one in history and one in biography.

1905 - Frederic Dannay
Alias of American writer Daniel Nathan, who with his cousin Manford Lepofsky (alias Manfred Bennington Lee) wrote as the fictional detective Ellery Queen.

1925 - Art Buchwald
American humorist best known for his long-running column in the Washington Post.










1940 - Robert Pinsky
American poet and translator, who was the United States Poet Laurate from 1997 to 2000.

1946 - Lewis Grizzard
American writer and humorist, known for his southern demeanor.

1946 - Elfriede Jelinek
Austrian playwright and novelist; winner of the 2004 Nobel Prize in Literature for her "musical flow of voices and counter-voices in novels and plays that, with extraordinary linguistic zeal, reveal the absurdity of society's cliches and their subjugating power."

1955 - David Profumo
English novelist and 6th Baron Profumo.

1957 - Gennifer Choldenko
American children's author whose book Al Capone Does My Shirts won a 2005 Newbery Honor.

1958 - Lynn Flewelling
American fantasy author.




Died:
1890 - Sir Richard Francis Burton
2004 - Anthony Hecht
2010 - Eva Ibbotson

October 19

Born:

1899 - Miguel Ángel Asturias
Guatemalan writer, winner of the 1967 Nobel Prize in literature "for his vivid literary achievement, deep-rooted in the national traits and traditions of Indian peoples of Latin America."

1931 - Ed Emberley
American artist known for his children's instructional drawing books.

1931 - John le Carré
British author of espionage novels.

1936 - Sylvia Browne
American author, psychic and spirit medium.

1942 - Andrew Vachss
American attorney and author of crime fiction.

1943 - L.E. Modesitt
American science fiction author, best known for his series The Saga of Recluce.

1946 - Philip Pullman
British writer, most well known for his series His Dark Materials.

1955 - Dan  Gutman
American author, known for his & Me series of children's books.

1960 - Susan Straight
American novelist; finalist for the 2001 National Book Award for her book Highwire Moon.

1969 - John Edward 
American television psychic whose books tend to deal with the afterlife.









Died:
1745 - Jonathan Swift
1950 - Edna St. Vincent Millay
1999 - Nathalie Sarraute