Damon Runyon was born in Manhattan, Kansas, on October 8, 1880. At the age of 7 his family moved to Pueblo, Colorado, where he would remain until adulthood. Growing up both his father and grandfather were newspaper editors. As a teenager, Runyon dabbled in the newspaper business himself, writing stories and reporting for the Pueblo …
Category: Authors
Joan Didion
BIOGRAPHY Joan Didion was born in Sacramento, CA, in 1934, the daughter of an officer in the Army Air Corps. From the start of her life, Didion took an interest in reading and writing. In fact, Didion was “a shy, bookish child… Didion spent her teenage years typing out Ernest Hemingway stories to learn …
F. Scott Fitzgerald
F. Scott Fitzgerald was born in St. Paul on September 24, 1896. He was named after his distant cousin, Francis Scott Key, who famously penned The Star-Spangled Banner. Following this, his family moved, living in both Buffalo and Syracuse New York until returning to St. Paul in 1908. Fitzgerald is best known for short stories that …
James Baldwin
James Arthur Baldwin, born August 2, 1924, is well-renowned, and considered one of the most prolific writers to come out of Harlem, and arguably one of the greatest writers of modern time. Baldwin grew up with his mother, Emma Berdis Jones, who had left his father over his struggles with drugs and alcohol, and would …
Margaret Fuller
Margaret Fuller was born on May 23rd, 1810 in Cambridgeport, Massachusetts and died on July 19th, 1850 at only 40 years old. Fuller is now regarded as “America’s first true feminist” for her various works in which she advocated for women and their rights. As a child, Fuller received strict and rigorous education from her …
Herman Melville
Biography Herman Melville (1819-1891) is an American author who wrote novels, short stories, and poems. He grew up in New York state. His family struggled with poverty after the death of this father in 1832 after having already struggled with the failure of the family import business two years earlier. Melville ended up spending much …
Jacob Riis
Biography: Born in Denmark, Jacob Riis immigrated to American when he was twenty years old. Finding work was difficult in his time here, and Riis found himself passing through many states in the north east, such as Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New York, in search of one. He would take whatever job came to him, …
Allen Ginsberg
Allen Ginsberg, born June 3, 1926 in Newark, New Jersey, was one of the most prominent figures in the “Beat Generation” artistic movement (along with others such as Jack Kerouac and William S. Burroughs). Ginsberg’s childhood was clearly influential on his later life, as his father Louis was an English teacher and his mother Naomi …
Edith Wharton
Edith Wharton Born January 24, 1862 in NYC – died August 11, 1937 in Paris, France Who was she? Edith Wharton was an American author best known for her stories and novels about the upper-class society to which she was born. She was the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for Literature in 1921 …
Helen Keller
Born on June 27, 1880 – Died June 1, 1968 Tuscumbia, Alabama All places she has lived: Westport, Connecticut; Wrentham, Massachusetts; Forest Hills, New York; and Tuscumbia, Alabama She was a American Author, Political Activist, and Lecturer. In her life time she published 12 books. Along with essays, and speeches. At a young age, …