October 7

Born:

1849 - James Whitcomb Riley
American writer and poet. His 1885 poem "Little Orphant Annie" was the basis for the later character.

1893 - Alice Dalgliesh
Trinidad-born American author of children's historical fiction; three-time winner of the Newbery Award.

1907 - Helen MacInnes
Scottish-American author of espionage novels










1922 - William Zinsser
American writer, editor and journalist, many of whose books dealt with the craft of writing.

1934 - Amiri Baraka  (LeRoi Jones)
American writer and poet, only holder of the position of Poet Laureate of New Jersey.

1935 - Thomas Keneally
Australian writer whose 1982 Booker prizewinning Schindler's Ark was adapted into the film Schindler's List.

1948 - Diane Ackerman
American author, poet and naturalist best known for her work A Natural History of the Senses.

1960 - Kevin Boyle
American historian; winner of a National Book Award in 2004 for his book Arc of Justice.

1964 - Dan Savage
American author, columnist and media pundit who writes the relationship and sex advice column Savage Love.

1966 - Sherman Alexie
American author whose books focus on his experiences growing up on the Spokane Indian reservation.




Died:
1849 - Edgar Allen Poe
1894 - Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.
1939 - Harvey Williams Cushing

October 6

Born:

1862 - Albert J. Beveridge
American historian and U.S. Senator from Indiana; winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Biography for his four-volume The Life of John Marshall.

1895 - Caroline Gordon
American novelist and literary critic who was influenced by the Southern Agrarian movement.

1902 - Elizabeth Gray Vining
American professional librarian, tutor to the emperor of Japan and author of the 1943 Newbery Award winning Adam of the Road.

1914 - Thor Heyerdahl
Norwegian ethnographer and adventurer whose books chronicled his exploits.

1950 - David Brin
American scientist and science fiction author, many of whose novels are set in the Uplift Universe.

1955 - Ellen Kushner
American speculative fiction author, who started by writing Choose-Your-Own-Adventure books but branched out with her own novels.

1958 - Joseph Finder
American author of business thrillers, several of which have been made into movies.




Died:
1892 - Alfred, Lord Tennyson
1973 - Margaret Wilson
1979 - Elizabeth Bishop
2006 - Wilson Tucker
2010 - Rhys Isaac

October 5

Born:

1713 - Denis Diderot
French philosopher and writer of the Enlightenment, creator and co-editor of the Encyclopédie.

1916 - Stetson Kennedy
American folklorist and author whose most famous work is an expose of the Ku Klux Klan.

1922 - Bil Keane
American cartoonist best known for his long-running strip The Family Circus.

1928- Louise Fitzhugh
American author and illustrator of children's literature, notably Harriet the Spy.

1949 - Bill James
American baseball writer and statistician.

1951 - Edward P. Jones
American novelist, whose book The Known World won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2004.

1952 - Clive Barker
English author known for his fantasy and horror fiction.

1958 - Neil deGrasse Tyson
American astrophysicist and science popularizer, author of a number of books on space.

1960 - David Shannon
American author and illustrator of children's books.





Died:
2010 - Bernard Clavel
2015 - Henning Mankell

October 4

Born:

1880 - Damon Runyon
American newspaperman and author best known for his short stories about New York City.

1892 - Robert Lawson 
American author and illustrator of children's books, known for his illustrations of other author's works like The Story of Ferdinand and Mr. Popper's Penguins.

1914 - Brendan Gill
American journalist and author, whose best known work details his job at the New Yorker magazine.

1924 - Donald Sobol
American author best known for his Encyclopedia Brown children's series.

1929 - John E. Mack
American psychiatrist and author, winner of the 1977 Pulitzer Prize for Biography for his bio of T.E. Lawrence, A Prince of our Disorder.

1937 - Jackie Collins
English novelist and younger sister of Joan Collins.  All 28 of her novels have made the New York Times Bestseller list.

1941 - Anne Rice
American author best known for her Vampire Chronicles series.

1941 - Roy Blount Jr.
American writer and humorist, and frequent panelist on NPR's Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me.

1941 - Karen Cushman
American children's author, winner of the Newbery Award for The Midwife's Apprentice.

1961 - Kazuki Takahashi
Japanese manga artist, best known as the creator of the Yu-Gi-Oh! series.

1968 - Tim Wise 
American anti-racism activist and writer.




Died:
1974 - Anne Sexton

October 3

Born:

1886 - Alain-Fournier
Nom de plume of French author Henri Alban-Fournier, whose one novel, Le Grand Meaulnes, is considered a classic of French Literature.

1900 - Thomas Wolfe
American novelist of the early 20th century, known for works like Look Homeward, Angel.

1906 - Natalie Savage Carlson
American children's author whose The Family Under the Bridge was a runner-up for the 1959 Newbery Medal.

1916 - James Herriot
Pen name of James Alfred Wight, British veterinarian and author, who is known for his semi-autobiographical series collectively called All Creatures Great and Small.



 

1925 - Gore Vidal
American novelist, essayist and playwright.

1970 - Sara Zarr
American novelist whose first book, Story of a Girl, was a National Book Award finalist.

1980 - Lindsey Kelk
British "chick lit" author and blogger.




Died:
2003 - William Steig

October 2

Born:

1879 - Wallace Stevens
American Modernist poet who won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1955.

1904 - Graham Greene
English author whose works tackled moral questions and often had a Catholic bent.

1911 - Jackie Finney
American author of science fiction and thrillers, including The Body Snatchers, the basis for the movie Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

1926 - Jan Morris 
Welsh historian and travel writer. Most known for her history of the British empire, the Pax Brittanica trilogy.

1944 - Vernor Vinge
American science fiction author and multiple Hugo Award winner.

1975 - Dan Santat
American author and illustrator of children's books, winner of the 2015 Caldecott Medal for The Adventures of Beekle: The Unimaginary Friend.




Died:
1981 - Harry Lewis Golden

October 1

Born:

1899 - Ernest Haycox
American author of western fiction.

1914 - Daniel J. Boorstein
American historian, Librarian of Congress from 1975 to 1987, and winner of the 1974 Pulitzer Prize in History for The Americans: The Democratic Experience.

1920 - David Herbert Donald
American historian, Lincoln biographer, and two-time Pulitzer winner.

1946 - Tim O'Brien
American novelist best known for writing about the Vietnam War.

1949 - Isaac Bonewits
American Druid who published books on Neopaganism and magic.

1959 - Brian P. Cleary
American author of humorous grammar books for children.




Died:
1962 - Ludwig Bemelmans
1972 - Louis Leakey
1985 - E.B. White
2013 - Tom Clancy