Curated playlist
American male short story writers
- Stephen KingA minivan hit Stephen King on a Maine road in June 1999. A dog in the back distracted the driver.
- Mark TwainMark Twain predicted he would die with Halley's Comet, and he did. He died the day after it passed closest to the Sun.
- F. Scott FitzgeraldF. Scott Fitzgerald died in 1940 believing his work was forgotten. The Great Gatsby later sold millions.
- Edgar Allan PoeEdgar Allan Poe's executor used forged letters to paint him as a drunken madman.
- Woody AllenWoody Allen failed a film production course at New York University, then went on to direct Annie Hall.
- Ernest HemingwayErnest Hemingway, only 18, carried Italian soldiers to safety despite being seriously wounded by mortar fire.
- Herman MelvilleHerman Melville's death notice misspelled his great novel as "Mobie Dick."
- Tennessee WilliamsTennessee Williams wanted to be sewn into a canvas sack and dropped into the sea.
- T. S. EliotT. S. Eliot compared an evening sky to a patient on a surgical table.
- William FaulknerWilliam Faulkner never told his daughter he had won the Nobel Prize. She heard it when the principal called her in.
- John SteinbeckJohn Steinbeck once stole bacon from a produce market to survive. He later won the 1962 Nobel Prize in Literature.
- Kurt VonnegutKurt Vonnegut survived the bombing of Dresden by hiding in an underground meat locker.
- Raymond ChandlerRaymond Chandler sold his first story for $180 after losing his oil job at forty-four.
- Vernor VingeWhat happens when machines get smarter than the people who built them? Vernor Vinge kept asking.
- Saul BellowSaul Bellow learned he had entered the U.S. illegally as a child when he tried to enlist. He became a citizen in 1941.
- Tom HanksTom Hanks lost 35 pounds to play a dying lawyer in Philadelphia. He thinned his hair and learned to walk differently.
- Jack LondonJack London lost four front teeth to scurvy in the Klondike. It also gave him the wolf dog of The Call of the Wild.
- Salman RushdieA fatwa ordering Salman Rushdie's execution was broadcast on Radio Tehran on Valentine's Day 1989.
- Philip K. DickPhilip K. Dick died four months before Blade Runner opened. He never saw the film that made his name famous.
- Arthur MillerArthur Miller wrote Death of a Salesman in less than six weeks. He finished the first act in less than a day.
- Nathaniel HawthorneNathaniel Hawthorne paid $100 to print his first novel, then tried to suppress every surviving copy.
- Ralph EllisonA 1967 fire destroyed more than 300 pages of Ralph Ellison's second novel. He never finished it.
- Stephen CraneStephen Crane wrote a famous Civil War novel without ever seeing a battle. He died of tuberculosis at 28.
- Vladimir NabokovNovelist Vladimir Nabokov also named butterfly species, and later genetic research backed his theory.
- Joseph HellerJoseph Heller's novel Catch-22 was first called Catch-18. It was renamed to avoid confusion with Mila 18.
- John JakesJohn Jakes wrote fiction at night while working as an advertising copywriter. His Kent series sold 55 million copies.
- George R. R. MartinA chess craze helped save George R. R. Martin's writing career. Bobby Fischer's 1972 win got him a tournament job.
- Junot DíazJunot Díaz arrived in New Jersey at six unable to speak English. He later won a Pulitzer Prize for fiction.
- L. Sprague de CampL. Sprague de Camp turned the word extraterrestrial into a noun. He also coined E.T. in a 1939 magazine article.
- Lin CarterLin Carter printed about 3,000 copies of his fanzine Kadath, and most were thrown away.
- Isaac AsimovIsaac Asimov coined the word "robotics" in a 1941 story, thinking it was just a natural term.
- Dave WolvertonDave Wolverton chose a second name partly because of where books were placed in bookstores. He was born John David Wolverton, and he published as both Dave Wolverton and David Farland. His reasoning was practical. A fantasy author needed a…
- Timothy ZahnTimothy Zahn wrote a Star Wars trilogy from a box of roleplaying game sourcebooks.
- Robert E. HowardRobert E. Howard, creator of Conan the Barbarian, died at thirty with almost none of his work in a book.
- David BrinAuthor David Brin won the Hugo Award for Best Novel twice with his Uplift Universe books.
- Raymond BensonRaymond Benson became the first non-British author to write James Bond novels.
- A. MerrittAuthor A. Merritt was a major influence on H. P. Lovecraft. His day job was editing a Sunday magazine.
- Fritz LeiberFritz Leiber is credited with coining the term "sword and sorcery".
- George SteinerGeorge Steiner was born Francis George Steiner on the 23rd of April 1929. He was a literary critic, essayist, philosopher, novelist and educator, and he is described as both French and American. Harriet Harvey-Wood, a former literature…