247 articles
Alan Lightman
Alan Lightman (born 1948) is an American physicist, essayist, and novelist who spent thirteen years in astrophysics research at Harvard before becoming a writer, best known for Einstein's Dreams (1993).
Alexander Theroux
Alexander Louis Theroux (born 1939, Medford, Massachusetts) is an American novelist, poet, and essayist, older brother of Paul Theroux, best known for the 704-page maximalist novel Darconville's Cat (1981), which Anthony Burgess named among the 99 best English novels since 1939.
Alice Munro
Alice Munro (1931–2024), Canadian short story writer, Nobel Literature 2013, first Canadian woman laureate. Author of 14 story collections including Dance of the Happy Shades and Dear Life, set in rural southwestern Ontario.
Alice Sebold
Alice Sebold (born 1963), American novelist and memoirist, author of Lucky, The Lovely Bones, and The Almost Moon, all #1 New York Times bestsellers; known for the 2021 exoneration of Anthony Broadwater.
Alice Walker
Alice Walker (born 1944), American novelist, poet, and activist from Eatonton, Georgia; author of The Color Purple (1982), the first African-American woman to win a Pulitzer Prize for fiction, also winner of the 1983 National Book Award.
Alicia Gaspar de Alba
Alicia Gaspar de Alba (born 1958) is an American Chicana novelist, poet, and scholar. A UCLA professor since 1994, she wrote Desert Blood: The Juárez Murders and Sor Juana's Second Dream.
Alison Espach
Alison Espach, American novelist and Providence College creative writing professor, author of The Adults (2011), Notes on Your Sudden Disappearance (2022), and the New York Times bestseller The Wedding People (2024), a ReadwithJenna pick and Goodreads Choice Award winner.
Ambrose Bierce
Ambrose Gwinnett Bierce (1842–1914?), American short story writer, journalist, and satirist, author of The Devil's Dictionary, Tales of Soldiers and Civilians, and 'An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge'; Union Civil War veteran who disappeared in Mexico in 1913.
Amor Towles
Amor Towles is an American novelist, born in Boston in 1964, known for Rules of Civility, A Gentleman in Moscow, and The Lincoln Highway, bestsellers in over forty languages.
Amy Hempel
Amy Hempel (born 1951) is an American short story writer known for compressed, emotionally charged fiction; her five collections include Reasons to Live (1985) and Sing to It (2019).
Amy Tan
Amy Tan (谭恩美; born 1952, Oakland, California) is an American novelist whose 1989 debut The Joy Luck Club, about Chinese immigrant mothers and American-born daughters, became an international best seller and National Book Award finalist; her 2024 book The Backyard Bird Chronicles is nature journaling.
André Aciman
André Aciman (born 1951, Alexandria) is an Egyptian-American novelist, memoirist, and CUNY comparative literature professor, author of Call Me by Your Name and Out of Egypt, known for themes of exile, memory, and desire.
Andre Dubus
Andre Dubus (1936–1999), American short story writer and essayist, Louisiana-born Marine captain turned Iowa MFA, author of The Lieutenant, "Killings," and Dancing After Hours; father of Andre Dubus III.
Ann Beattie
Ann Beattie, born Charlotte Ann Beattie in 1947, is an American short-story writer and novelist whose New Yorker fiction about disaffected young people inspired talk of a "Beattie Generation."
Ann Patchett
Ann Patchett (born 1963) is an American novelist and co-owner of Nashville's Parnassus Books, author of Bel Canto, The Dutch House, Tom Lake, and Whistler, winner of the Orange Prize and PEN/Faulkner Award.
Anne Tyler
Anne Tyler (born 1941, Minneapolis) is an American novelist of Baltimore-set domestic realist fiction, author of If Morning Ever Comes (1964), The Accidental Tourist, Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant, and the 1989 Pulitzer-winning Breathing Lessons; her 25th novel is Three Days in June (2025).
Annie Proulx
Annie Proulx (Edna Annie Proulx, born 1935, Norwich, Connecticut) is an American novelist and short-story writer, author of The Shipping News, which won the 1993 National Book Award and 1994 Pulitzer Prize, and of "Brokeback Mountain", adapted into an Oscar-winning 2005 film. Also wrote Postcards, Close Range, Barkskins, and Fen, Bog & Swamp.
Anthony Doerr
Anthony Doerr (born 1973) is an American novelist and short story writer from Cleveland, Ohio, living in Boise, Idaho. Author of All the Light We Cannot See (2015 Pulitzer Prize, 15 million copies) and Cloud Cuckoo Land.
Armistead Maupin
Armistead Maupin, born 1944, is an American novelist best known for the Tales of the City series, which began as a San Francisco newspaper serial in the 1970s.
Barbara Kingsolver
Barbara Kingsolver (born 1955) is an American novelist, essayist, and poet of socially engaged fiction. Author of The Bean Trees, The Poisonwood Bible, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, and the Pulitzer-winning Demon Copperhead; only two-time Women's Prize winner and 2024 National Book Award lifetime achievement honoree.
Ben Shattuck
Ben Shattuck (born 1984) is an American writer and artist, author of Six Walks (2022) and The History of Sound (2024), which won the 2025 Mark Twain Award and became a Cannes film. He runs Davoll's General Store, South Dartmouth, built 1793.
Bernard Malamud
Bernard Malamud (1914–1986) was an American novelist and short story writer of Jewish life who wrote The Natural, The Assistant, and the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Fixer.
Bobbie Ann Mason
Bobbie Ann Mason (born 1940) is an American novelist and short-story writer from Mayfield, Kentucky, known for Shiloh and Other Stories (1982) and the novel In Country (1985).
Bret Easton Ellis
Bret Easton Ellis, American novelist of Less Than Zero (1985), American Psycho (1991), and The Shards (2023); deadpan satirist of privileged, disaffected Los Angeles and Wall Street.
Bruce Wagner
Bruce Wagner, American novelist and screenwriter of the Cellphone Trilogy (I'm Losing You, I'll Let You Go, Still Holding), Wild Palms, and Maps to the Stars, chronicling Hollywood and spiritual yearning in Los Angeles.
Carlos Bulosan
Carlos Bulosan (1913–1956) was a Filipino American migrant worker, labor organizer, and writer best known for America Is in the Heart (1946), chronicling Depression-era Filipino workers in the United States.
Carson McCullers
Carson McCullers (Lula Carson Smith, 1917–1967), American Southern Renaissance novelist of The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter, The Member of the Wedding, and The Ballad of the Sad Café; themes of loneliness, misfits, and the grotesque.
Celeste Ng
Celeste Ng, born 1980, is an American novelist and author of Everything I Never Told You, Little Fires Everywhere, and Our Missing Hearts; Harvard graduate and University of Michigan MFA, Pushcart Prize winner whose work has been translated into over thirty languages.
Chang-Rae Lee (이창래)
Chang-Rae Lee (이창래), Korean American novelist and Stanford English professor, born South Korea 1965; author of Native Speaker, A Gesture Life, The Surrendered (Pulitzer finalist), On Such a Full Sea, My Year Abroad, and A Tender Age.
Charles Baxter (author)
Charles Baxter (born 1947) is an American novelist and short story writer whose Midwest-set fiction includes The Feast of Love, a National Book Award finalist.