Stan Lee, Writer, Editor, Publisher, Producer, was born on December 28, 1922, in New York City to Romanian immigrants Celia and Jack Lieber. Marvel Comics became a highly popular franchise, and Stan Lee was promoted to editorial director and publisher in 1972. Stanley Martin Lieber Biography and Profile. Read more
Philip Roth was born on March 19, 1933 to Herman Roth and Bess (Finkel) Roth in Newark, New Jersey, where he and his older brother, Sandy, grew up. His father, the American-born son of Jewish immigrants from the eastern European region of Galicia (currently occupied by Poland and Ukraine).Roth restored his career during the late 1960s, when he began teaching literature at the University of Pennsylvania, where he remained on the faculty for about 11 years. Philip Milton Roth biography and profile. Read more
Fresno State Professor Randa Jarrar was born in Chicago in 1978 to Egyptian mother and Palestinian father. She’s an ward-winning American novelist, short story writer, essayist, and translator of several Arabic short stories and a novel. Her book, Him, Me, Muhammad Ali, won an American Book Award, a PEN Oakland Award, and a Story Prize Spotlight Award. Jarrar has received fellowships from the Civitella Ranieri Foundation, the Lannan Foundation, Hedgebrook, and others. Randa Jarrar Biography and Profile. Read more
Kate Chopin was born on February 8, 1850, in St. Louis, Missouri. Among her more than 100 short stories are “Désirée’s Baby” and “Madame Celestin’s Divorce.” The Awakening (1899), a realistic novel about the sexual and artistic awakening of a young mother who abandons her family, was initially condemned for its sexual frankness but was later acclaimed. Much of Chopin’s life was defined by the deaths of those close to her. Kate Chopin biography and profile. Read more
Stephen King was born on September 21, 1947 in Portland, Maine, to Donald and Nellie Ruth Pillsbury King. Stephen made his first professional short story sale (“The Glass Floor”) to Startling Mystery Stories in 1967. Stephen is the 2003 recipient of The National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters and the 2014 National Medal of Arts. Stephen Edwin King Biography and Profile. Read more
Toni Morrison, Writer, Editor, Literary Critic, Playwright, born Chloe Anthony Wofford, on February 18, 1931 in Lorain (Ohio), the second of four children in a black working-class family. Displayed an early interest in literature. Toni Morrison is a Nobel Prize- and Pulitzer Prize-winning American novelist. Among her best known novels are ‘The Bluest Eye,’ ‘Song of Solomon,’ ‘Beloved’ and ‘A Mercy.’ Read Chloe Anthony Wofford Biography and Profile. Read more
Born in New York City on14 August 1947, Danielle Steel embarked on a career in advertising before publishing her first novel, Going Home, in 1973. What I care about most: my children. They are my life and always have been. When they were younger, I was a full time, hands-on Mom by day, and wrote at night. The hardest thing that ever happened to me as many of you know was when my son Nick died, when he was 19, in 1997. Read Danielle Steel Biography and Profile. Read more
In 1951, Hemingway wrote The Old Man and the Sea, which would become perhaps his most famous book. Nobel Prize winner Ernest Hemingway is seen as one of the great American 20th century novelists, and is known for works like ‘A Farewell to Arms’ and ‘The Old Man and the Sea.’ Ernest Miller Hemingway was born on July 21, 1899, Illinois. Clarence and Grace Hemingway raised their son in this conservative suburb of Chicago. Read Ernest Hemingway Biography and Profile. Read more