153 articles
Da Chen
Da Chen, born in Fujian, China, in 1962, was a Chinese American author and Columbia Law School graduate known for his bestselling memoir Colors of the Mountain.
Daniel James Brown
Daniel James Brown is an American narrative nonfiction author of The Boys in the Boat (2013 Carnegie Medal), Under a Flaming Sky, The Indifferent Stars Above, and Facing the Mountain; distinct from thriller writer Dan Brown.
Daniel Tammet
Daniel Tammet (born Daniel Paul Corney, 1979) is an English autistic savant writer, known for Born on a Blue Day, reciting pi to 22,514 decimal places, synaesthesia, and books on neurodivergence.
Dava Sobel
Dava Sobel (born 1947) is an American science writer, former New York Times science reporter, and author of Longitude, Galileo's Daughter, The Glass Universe, and The Elements of Marie Curie.
Dave Pelzer
Dave Pelzer (David James Pelzer, born 1960) is the American author of the 1995 abuse memoir A Child Called "It" and its sequels, a bestselling self-help writer, motivational speaker, and Jefferson Award recipient whose account has been disputed by one brother and supported by another.
David Sedaris
David Sedaris, American humorist and essayist, author of Me Talk Pretty One Day, Naked, and Calypso; NPR Santaland Diaries; diarist since 1977; lives in West Sussex with Hugh Hamrick; 14 bestselling books.
David Unaipon
David Unaipon (Ngunaitponi), 1872–1967, Ngarrindjeri preacher, inventor, and first published Aboriginal author from Point McLeay Mission, South Australia; patented a 1909 sheep-shearing handpiece, wrote Native Legends (1929), and appears on the Australian $50 note.
Deborah Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire
Deborah Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire (Deborah Mitford, Debo, 1920–2014), youngest Mitford sister, memoirist and restorer of Chatsworth House; created its farm shop and farmyard and wrote Wait for Me!.
Deborah Feldman
Deborah Feldman (born 1986) is a German-American memoirist raised in the Satmar Hasidic community of Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Her 2012 memoir Unorthodox was a New York Times bestseller and inspired the 2020 Netflix miniseries; she lives in Berlin.
Dorothy Wordsworth
Dorothy Wordsworth (1771–1855) was a British diarist, prose writer, and poet, sister of William Wordsworth, whose Grasmere journals recorded Lake District life and fed his poetry.
Dossie Easton
Dossie Easton (Dorothy Marguerite Easton, born 1944) is an American San Francisco marriage and family therapist and author; with Janet W. Hardy she wrote The Ethical Slut (1997), a foundational polyamory guide, plus BDSM handbooks.
Duff Gordon, Lucie, Lady
Lucie, Lady Duff Gordon (1821–1869) was a British travel writer and translator whose Letters from Egypt made her famous; she settled in Luxor, where Egyptians called her Sitt el Kebeer.
Elie Wiesel
Elie Wiesel (1928-2016), Holocaust survivor from Sighet, Romania, author of Night (from Yiddish Un di velt hot geshvign), Nobel Peace Prize 1986, Boston University professor and human rights advocate.
Ellen Kuzwayo
Ellen Kuzwayo, full name Nnoseng Ellen Kate Kuzwayo, was a South African writer and activist whose autobiography Call Me Woman won the 1986 CNA Literary Award.
Emilee Hackney
Emilee Hackney, American writer from Tazewell, Virginia, eighth-generation Appalachian, Harvard '20 English graduate; author of the 2026 Penguin Press New York Times bestselling debut memoir All That's Unseen about Pentecostalism and leaving Appalachia.
Eric Newby
Eric Newby (1919–2006) was an English travel writer, author of A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush and The Last Grain Race, Observer travel editor 1964–73, wartime POW who married Wanda Skof.
Ève Curie
Ève Curie (Ève Denise Labouisse, 1904-2007), French pianist, journalist, and diplomat, younger daughter of Pierre and Marie Curie; author of the 1937 bestseller Madame Curie, Free France wartime correspondent, and NATO adviser.
Fanny Knight
Fanny Knight (Frances Catherine Austen Knight, Lady Knatchbull, 1793–1882) was Jane Austen's favourite niece, whose diaries and letters are a key biographical source and who likely annotated the family Baronetage used for Persuasion.
Fatima Bhutto (فاطمہ بھٹو)
Fatima Bhutto (فاطمہ بھٹو), born 1982 in Kabul, is a Pakistani writer, journalist, and activist, daughter of assassinated Murtaza Bhutto; author of Songs of Blood and Sword (2010), The Shadow of the Crescent Moon, The Runaways, and The Hour of the Wolf (2026).
Fauna Hodel
Fauna Hodel was an American author and motivational speaker known for her 2008 memoir, One Day She'll Darken. It details her connection to Dr. George Hodel.
Fernão Mendes Pinto
Fernão Mendes Pinto (c. 1509–1583) was a Portuguese adventurer and travel writer whose memoir Peregrinação recounts twenty-one years of travel, trade, and slavery in Asia.
Frank McCourt
Frank McCourt (Francis McCourt, 1930–2009), Irish-American memoirist and New York teacher, author of Angela's Ashes (1996), winner of the 1997 Pulitzer Prize for Biography; also wrote 'Tis and Teacher Man.
Frieda Lawrence
Frieda Lawrence, also known as Frieda Weekley, was a German baroness and writer. She wrote the memoir Not I, But the Wind and managed D. H. Lawrence's estate.
Gavin Maxwell
Gavin Maxwell (1914–1969), Scottish naturalist and author of Ring of Bright Water (1960), the otter memoir that sold over two million copies; also SOE instructor and Soay basking shark fishery operator.
Ghostwriter
Ghostwriter: a professional writer producing books, speeches, or articles credited to someone else without a byline. Term coined by Christy Walsh in the 1920s; EFA median rates 25¢–$1 per word; credit is rare but increasing.
Giacomo Casanova
Giacomo Casanova (1725-1798), Venetian adventurer and author of the French memoirs Histoire de ma vie; librarian at Dux, escaped the Piombi prison in 1756, and gave his name to the archetype of the seducer.
Glennon Doyle
Glennon Doyle, American author of Untamed, Love Warrior, and Carry On, Warrior; host of the We Can Do Hard Things podcast with Abby Wambach; founder of Together Rising and Treat Media.
Henri Troyat (Лев Асланович Тарасов)
Henri Troyat (Lev Aslanovich Tarasov), French novelist and biographer born in Moscow in 1911 to an Armenian family; Goncourt 1938, Académie française 1959, author of Tolstoy, Pushkin, and tsar biographies.
Hope Against Hope
Hope Against Hope (Russian: Vospominaniya, "memoirs") is Nadezhda Mandelstam's memoir of her husband, the poet Osip Mandelstam, and his persecution under Stalin, first published in English in 1970.
Horace Walpole
Horace Walpole (1717-1797), youngest son of Britain's first Prime Minister Sir Robert Walpole, wrote The Castle of Otranto, the first Gothic novel, built Strawberry Hill, founded the Strawberry Hill Press, and coined 'serendipity'.