It’s the birthday of children’s book author and illustrator Chris Van Allsburg (b. 1949), best known for his picture books Jumanji (1981) and The Polar Express (1985), both of which won Caldecott Medals. Van Allsburg was born and raised in Grand Rapids, Michigan, the youngest of two. His father and uncles worked in his grandfather’s [...]
It’s the birthday of short story writer and poet Henry Lawson (1867-1922), one of the best known Australian authors of the colonial period and sometimes called “Australia’s poet of the people.” Lawson had a hardscrabble life that has appealed to many Australians, who live, as is well known, in a place where everything tries to [...]
It’s the birthday of Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-1896, #nicelonglife), whose anti-slavery novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1851-52) had such a powerful and polarizing effect on society as to be considered one of the causes of the Civil War. Stowe was born in Litchfield, Connecticut, to the sort of family who were always learning or teaching or [...]
It’s the birthday of William Butler Yeats (1865-1939), one of the greatest poets of the 20th century and someone who, more than 75 years after his death, “still towers among the giants of world literature” (see article here). I know what you’re thinking: is Yeats Yeats, or is Yeats Keats? Here’s a handy guide to [...]
It’s the birthday of critically acclaimed bestselling mystery/thriller author Trevanian (1931-2005), real name Rodney William Whitaker, who also wrote under several other pseudonyms to protect his privacy and as a creative way of getting into a book: he claimed he would dream up an imaginary author who would be perfect for writing a particular book, [...]
It’s the birthday of novelist Yasunari Kawabata (1899-1972), the first Japanese author to win the Nobel Prize for Literature (1968). (The other two Japanese authors to win the Nobel in lit are Kenzaburō Ōe, 1994, and Kazuo Ishiguro, 2017, although maybe he shouldn’t count since he was born in Japan but raised in the UK, [...]
It’s the birthday of one of the greatest authors of the 20th century, Saul Bellow (1915-2005), who in 1976 won the Nobel Prize for Literature and who on his deathbed asked, “Was I a man or was I a jerk?” (Spoiler alert: he was a jerk.) His novels, often set in post-WWII Chicago, were electric, [...]
It’s the birthday of the first African American author to win the Pulitzer Prize (1950), Gwendolyn Brooks (1917-2000). Brooks was also the first African American woman appointed to be poetry consultant (now called poet laureate) to the Library of Congress (1985-86). Brooks was born in Topeka, Kansas, but grew up in Chicago, with parents who [...]
It’s the birthday of poet Maxine Kumin (1925-2014, #nicelonglife), who won the Pulitzer Prize and the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize and who has occasionally been called “Roberta Frost” due to her poetry’s rootedness in New England. Kumin was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the youngest of four in a Jewish family, and grew up in a [...]
It’s the birthday of Richard Scarry (1919-1994), one of the most beloved children’s book authors of all time. Scarry wrote more than 250 books that were translated into dozens of languages and sold over 100 million copies; his main audience were toddlers who prudently recognized Scarry’s books as an excellent way to acquire language skills. [...]
It’s the birthday of bestselling author and comic book writer Joe Hill (b. 1972), whose horror fiction has won him a handful of Bram Stoker Awards, British Fantasy Awards, and one Ray Bradbury Fellowship. Joseph Hillstrom King was born in Hermon, Maine, to Tabitha and Stephen King (yes, that Stephen King). Growing up, Hill and [...]
It’s the birthday of prolific novelist Larry McMurtry (b. 1936), who writes mostly about the West and whose work ranges from “meh” to the Pulitzer-Prize winning Lonesome Dove (1985). McMurtry was born on a cattle ranch outside Archer City, Texas, the oldest of four, and at the age of six received a gift of 19 [...]