Curated category
20th-century American novelists
- Stephen KingStephen Edwin King was born on the 21st of September 1947 in Portland, Maine. His father Donald Edwin King worked as a traveling vacuum salesman after…
- Mark TwainSamuel Langhorne Clemens was born on the 30th of November 1835, in Florida, Missouri. He grew up as the sixth of seven children to Jane Lampton and John…
- F. Scott FitzgeraldFrancis Scott Key Fitzgerald arrived in the world on the 24th of September 1896. He was born into a middle-class Catholic family in Saint Paul, Minnesota.
- Ernest HemingwayErnest Miller Hemingway was born on the 21st of July 1899, in Oak Park, Illinois. He grew up as the second of six children to Clarence Edmonds Hemingway and…
- Tennessee WilliamsThomas Lanier Williams III arrived in Columbus, Mississippi on the 26th of March 1911. He was the second child born to Edwina Dakin and Cornelius Coffin…
- Henry JamesHenry James was born at 21 Washington Place in Manhattan on the 15th of April 1843. His father Henry James Sr. inherited a fortune from his own father…
- William FaulknerWilliam Cuthbert Faulkner was born on the 25th of September 1897 in New Albany, Mississippi. He grew up in Oxford, a town where his family lived for most of…
- Jack KerouacOn the 17th of May 1928, a six-year-old boy named Jack Kerouac knelt in a church pew in Lowell, Massachusetts. He made his first Confession that day and…
- John SteinbeckJohn Steinbeck was born on the 27th of February 1902 in Salinas, California. He grew up in a small rural valley set about 25 miles from the Pacific Coast.
- Kurt VonnegutKurt Vonnegut was born in Indianapolis on the 11th of November 1922. He descended from a long line of German Americans whose family fortune rested on the…
- Kirk DouglasKirk Douglas was born Issur Danielovitch on the 9th of December 1916, in Amsterdam, New York. He grew up as the fourth of seven children and the only son of…
- Raymond ChandlerRaymond Thornton Chandler arrived in Chicago on the 23rd of July 1888. His mother Florence Dart was originally from Ireland, and his father Maurice Benjamin…
- Langston HughesJames Mercer Langston Hughes entered the world on the 1st of February 1901, in Joplin, Missouri. His family tree held deep roots of contradiction and…
- Vernor VingeVernor Steffen Vinge published his first short story, "Apartness", in the June 1965 issue of the British magazine New Worlds. He had just received his B.S.
- Saul BellowSolomon Bellows arrived in the world on the 10th of June 1915, within the quiet streets of Lachine, Quebec. His parents had fled Saint Petersburg, Russia…
- Hunter S. ThompsonHunter Stockton Thompson entered the world on the 18th of July 1937, in Louisville, Kentucky. He grew up as the first of three sons born to Virginia Davison…
- Jack LondonJohn Griffith London arrived in San Francisco on the 12th of January 1876. His mother Flora Wellman worked as a music teacher and spiritualist while living…
- Philip K. DickPhilip Kindred Dick was born on the 16th of December 1928 in Chicago, Illinois. He arrived six weeks prematurely alongside his twin sister Jane Charlotte…
- Poul AndersonPoul William Anderson arrived in the world on the 25th of November 1926. He was born in Bristol, Pennsylvania to parents who had emigrated from Denmark.
- Arthur MillerArthur Asher Miller was born on the 17th of October 1915 in Harlem, Manhattan. He grew up as the second child of Augusta and Isidore Miller.
- Carl SaganCarl Edward Sagan was born on the 9th of November 1934 in the Bensonhurst neighborhood of Brooklyn. His father Samuel worked as a garment worker who had…
- Edgar Rice BurroughsEdgar Rice Burroughs was born on the 1st of September 1875, in Chicago, Illinois. He was the fourth son of Major George Tyler Burroughs and his wife Mary…
- Steve Winter (game designer)Steve Winter was born in Dubuque, Iowa on the 8th of December 1957. He attended Catholic school for both grade school and high school before transferring to…
- H. P. LovecraftHoward Phillips Lovecraft was born on the 20th of August 1890 in Providence, Rhode Island. His father Winfield Scott Lovecraft suffered a psychotic episode…
- Margaret MitchellMargaret Mitchell was born on the 8th of November 1900 into a wealthy family in Atlanta. Her father Eugene Muse Mitchell worked as an attorney while her…
- Ralph EllisonRalph Waldo Ellison was born on the 1st of March 1913 in Oklahoma City. His father Lewis Alfred worked as a construction foreman and small-business owner…
- John GrishamJohn Ray Grisham Jr. was born on the 8th of February 1955 in Jonesboro, Arkansas. His family moved to Southaven, Mississippi when he was four years old.
- Jonathan FranzenJonathan Earl Franzen was born on the 17th of August 1959 in Western Springs, Illinois. He grew up in an affluent neighborhood in the St.
- Carrie FisherCarrie Frances Fisher entered the world on the 21st of October 1956 at Providence Saint Joseph Medical Center in Burbank, California.
- Vladimir NabokovVladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov entered the world on the 22nd of April 1899 in Saint Petersburg. His family belonged to an ancient Russian nobility granted a…
- Joseph HellerJoseph Heller was born on the 1st of May 1923, in Coney Island. His parents were poor Jewish immigrants from Russia named Lena and Isaac Donald Heller.
- John JakesJohn William Jakes entered the world on the 31st of March 1932, in Chicago, Illinois. His early years unfolded within a city that would later shape his…
- Upton SinclairUpton Beall Sinclair Jr. entered the world on the 20th of September 1878, in Baltimore, Maryland. His father worked as a liquor salesman while his mother…
- Gil Scott-HeronGilbert Scott-Heron arrived in Chicago on the 1st of April 1949. His mother Bobbie Scott was an opera singer who performed with the Oratorio Society of New…
- George R. R. MartinGeorge Raymond Martin was born on the 20th of September 1948, in Bayonne, New Jersey. His father worked as a longshoreman while his mother's family had once…
- L. Sprague de CampLyon Sprague de Camp was born on the 27th of November 1907 in New York City. He grew up as one of three sons to Lyon de Camp, a businessman dealing in real…
- Lin CarterLinwood Vrooman Carter stood in the infantry during the Korean War from 1951 to 1953. He served as a soldier before he ever became a professional author.
- Isaac AsimovIsaac Asimov arrived in the United States on the 3rd of February 1923, aboard the RMS Baltic at age three. His family traveled from Petrovichi, Russian SFSR…
- Dave WolvertonJohn David Wolverton arrived in Springfield, Oregon on the 28th of May 1957. His family moved to a farm in Monroe when he was six years old.
- Timothy ZahnTimothy Zahn grew up in Lombard, Illinois during the mid-20th century. He attended Glenbard East High School within that same town.
- E. L. DoctorowEdgar Lawrence Doctorow was born on the 6th of January 1931 in the Bronx. His parents were Rose and David Richard Doctorow, second-generation Americans of…
- Michael CrichtonJohn Michael Crichton was born on the 23rd of October 1942, in Chicago, Illinois. He grew up in Roslyn, New York, where he walked to school and rode his bike…
- Robert E. HowardRobert E. Howard was born on the 22nd of January 1906 in Peaster, Texas. His father worked as a traveling country physician while his mother raised him in a…
- Fletcher PrattMurray Fletcher Pratt stood before a grand jury in February 1916 after police arrested him for stealing less than twenty-five dollars from newspaper cash…
- Roger ZelaznyRoger Joseph Zelazny was born in Euclid, Ohio on the 13th of May 1937. He grew up as the only child of a Polish immigrant father and an Irish-American mother.
- David BrinGlen David Brin was born on the 6th of October 1950 in Glendale, California. His parents were Selma and Herb Brin, who raised him as a Jewish child.
- Audre LordeAudre Lorde was born Audrey Geraldine Lorde on the 18th of February 1934, in New York City to Caribbean immigrants Frederick Byron Lorde and Linda Gertrude…
- Jonathan TropperJonathan Tropper was born on the 19th of February 1970 in the Riverdale section of the Bronx. He grew up in a liberal observant Jewish home that shaped his…
- Kevin J. AndersonKevin James Anderson was born on the 27th of March 1962 in Racine, Wisconsin. He grew up in Oregon, Wisconsin, where his early life took shape before he…