Curated category
20th-century American short story writers
- Stephen KingStephen King was walking on the shoulder of Maine State Route 5 on the 19th of June 1999 when a minivan struck him and sent him into a depression in the…
- Mark TwainMark Twain was born on the 30th of November 1835, shortly after Halley's Comet swept past the Earth, and he came to believe the two of them were bound…
- F. Scott FitzgeraldF. Scott Fitzgerald sold fewer than 23,000 copies of The Great Gatsby in its first year, and the novel posted tepid sales for the rest of his life.
- Ernest HemingwayErnest Hemingway was born on the 21st of July 1899, in Oak Park, Illinois, into a family where his mother kept his hair long and dressed him in frilly…
- Tennessee WilliamsTennessee Williams wrote in his will that he wanted to be sewn into a canvas sack and dropped into the sea at the exact spot where his idol, the poet Hart…
- H. P. LovecraftH. P. Lovecraft died on the 15th of March 1937 in Providence, Rhode Island, virtually unknown to the reading public. He was 46 years old, hospitalized with…
- William FaulknerWilliam Faulkner spent most of his writing life within a few square miles of Lafayette County, Mississippi, yet the fictional world he built from that patch…
- John SteinbeckJohn Steinbeck once stole bacon from a local produce market to survive. During the Great Depression, he and his first wife lived on fish and crabs he…
- Kurt VonnegutKurt Vonnegut survived the firebombing of Dresden by hiding in a meat locker three stories underground, surrounded by hanging cadavers.
- Langston HughesLangston Hughes died on the 22nd of May 1967, and beneath the floor of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem, his ashes rest under an…
- 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 BellowSaul Bellow was born Solomon Bellows on the 10th of June, 1915, in Lachine, Quebec, to parents who had fled Saint Petersburg two years earlier, carrying with…
- Jack LondonJack London was born on the 12th of January, 1876, in a San Francisco neighborhood that would later burn to the ground in the earthquake of 1906.
- Philip K. DickPhilip K. Dick died on the 2nd of March 1982, in a Santa Ana hospital, having never seen the film that would make his name famous.
- Arthur MillerArthur Miller died on the evening of the 10th of February 2005 - the fifty-sixth anniversary of the Broadway debut of Death of a Salesman.
- Ralph EllisonRalph Waldo Ellison was born on the 1st of March 1913 in Oklahoma City, named after the poet Ralph Waldo Emerson by a father who hoped his son would grow up…
- Joseph HellerJoseph Heller was born on the 1st of May, 1923, in Coney Island, Brooklyn, to poor Jewish immigrant parents from Russia.
- 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…
- George R. R. MartinGeorge Raymond Richard Martin was born on the 20th of September, 1948, in Bayonne, New Jersey, the son of a longshoreman.
- Joe ShusterJoe Shuster was born in Toronto in 1914, too poor to afford drawing paper, so he wandered from store to store collecting whatever scraps merchants threw out.
- 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 wrote or edited more than 500 books, and on top of that he sent an estimated 90,000 letters and postcards. He once said the only thing about…
- Timothy ZahnTimothy Zahn was born in 1951, and for much of the late 1980s, Star Wars was a franchise running on fumes. The films had wrapped, the toys were fading from…
- Ambrose BierceAmbrose Bierce closed his last known letter with a single sentence: "As to me, I leave here tomorrow for an unknown destination." He wrote those words in…
- Robert E. HowardRobert E. Howard died on the morning of the 11th of June 1936 at age thirty, having first asked a nurse whether his mother would ever wake from her coma.
- 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.
- Raymond BensonRaymond Benson was born in Midland, Texas, in 1955, a place known for its oil fields and wide-open skies, far removed from the smoky London clubs and exotic…
- Fritz LeiberFritz Reuter Leiber Jr. was born on the 24th of December 1910, in Chicago, Illinois, into a household where Shakespeare was practically a family business.