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Curated category

American fantasy 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…
  • Edgar Allan PoeEdgar Allan Poe was found semiconscious on the streets of Baltimore on the 3rd of October, 1849, wearing clothes that were not his own.
  • 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…
  • Poul AndersonPoul William Anderson was born on the 25th of November 1926 in Bristol, Pennsylvania, to Danish parents who would soon uproot the family and carry it across…
  • Edgar Rice BurroughsEdgar Rice Burroughs was born on the 1st of September, 1875, in Chicago, Illinois, the fourth son of Major George Tyler Burroughs, a Civil War veteran and…
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • David BenioffDavid Benioff was born David Friedman on the 25th of September, 1970, the youngest of three children in a Jewish family in New York City.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • Gary GygaxGary Gygax grew up close enough to Wrigley Field that he could hear the roar of the crowds from his bedroom window. That detail matters, because it tells you…
  • Jack VanceJack Vance published his first story in the summer of 1945 in Thrilling Wonder Stories. It ran sixteen pages. Over the next seven decades, he would go on to…
  • A. MerrittA. Merritt earned $100,000 a year by the end of his life, but the work he is remembered for was never his day job. Abraham Grace Merritt, born on the 20th of…
  • 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.
  • Frank MentzerJacob Franklin Mentzer III stood in the White House gardens on a spring day in 1972. He played his guitar for inner-city children while Pat Nixon watched…
  • James Wyatt (game designer)James Wyatt was writing adventures for Dungeon magazine while serving as the minister of two small United Methodist churches in southeastern Ohio.
  • John Eric HolmesJohn Eric Holmes stood on the frozen ground of Korea in 1952. He was a first lieutenant in the United States Marine Corps at that time.
  • Alan Dean FosterAlan Dean Foster, born on the 18th of November 1946, is the kind of writer whose name you might not immediately recognize, but whose words you have almost…
  • Leigh BrackettLeigh Douglass Brackett was born on the 7th of December 1915 in Los Angeles, California. Her father died when she was very young and her mother did not…