Curated playlist
Novelists from Illinois
- 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 clothes to match his older sister, aiming for the two to look like twins. That same…
- 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 them the memory of a life that had already collapsed. His mother could not stop…
- 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 businessman. By the time he died on the 19th of March, 1950, he had written almost…
- Jonathan FranzenJonathan Franzen was born on the 17th of August, 1959, in Western Springs, Illinois, and by the time he was in his early forties, he had managed to get his glasses stolen off his face at a London book launch party. That happened in 2010,…
- John JakesJohn William Jakes sold his first short story in 1950, and by the time he died in Sarasota on the 11th of March 2023, he had put tens of millions of books into readers' hands. The Kent Family Chronicles alone sold 55 million copies. The…
- Gil Scott-HeronGil Scott-Heron was born on the 1st of April, 1949, in Chicago, and by the time he died on the 27th of May, 2011, he had changed American music in ways that are still being counted. He is remembered as a poet, a singer, a novelist, and a…
- Michael CrichtonMichael Crichton stood 6 feet 9 inches tall, and he spent much of his life feeling out of place because of it. That restlessness never left him. It pushed him through Harvard's English department and into biological anthropology, through…
- 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 something about the world that shaped him: a world of crowd noise, neighborhood…
- Frank MentzerFrank Mentzer, born Jacob Franklin Mentzer III, stood in the White House gardens in 1972. The National Park Service had hired him to play a concert for inner-city children. Pat Nixon walked over to listen, trailed by national news crews.…
- James KahnJames Kahn was born on the 30th of December, 1947, in Chicago, and by the time most people encounter his name, they are holding a paperback copy of Return of the Jedi. That novelization made him a household name among a generation of Star…