90 articles
Mark Helprin
Mark Helprin (born 1947) is an American novelist and political essayist, author of Winter's Tale (1983), A Soldier of the Great War, and Paris in the Present Tense; PEN/Faulkner and Prix de Rome winner, Dole 1996 speechwriter.
Mark Z. Danielewski
Mark Z. Danielewski is an American experimental novelist, author of House of Leaves (2000), National Book Award finalist Only Revolutions, The Fifty Year Sword, and the five-volume series The Familiar; born in New York City, based in Los Angeles.
Michael Chabon
Michael Chabon, American novelist (born 1963, Washington, D.C.), Pulitzer Prize winner for The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay; also wrote Wonder Boys, The Yiddish Policemen's Union, Moonglow; showrunner of Star Trek: Picard; lives in Berkeley with Ayelet Waldman.
Min Jin Lee (이민진)
Min Jin Lee (이민진, born 1968) is a Korea-born American novelist, author of Free Food for Millionaires, the National Book Award finalist Pachinko, and American Hagwon (2026), third of her Diaspora Quartet; New York State Author Laureate 2025–2027.
Mona Simpson
Mona Simpson is an American novelist (born 1957, Green Bay, Wisconsin), author of Anywhere But Here, The Lost Father, Off Keck Road, and Commitment, UCLA professor, Paris Review publisher, and biological sister of Steve Jobs.
Nico Walker
Nico Walker (born 1985), American novelist from Cleveland; not Nick Walker or Nicole Walker. Former Army medic with 250+ Iraq missions who robbed 10 banks, wrote the NYT-bestselling PEN/Hemingway finalist novel Cherry in prison, adapted as a 2021 Russo brothers film.
Ottessa Moshfegh
Ottessa Moshfegh (born 1981, Boston), also Ottessa Charlotte Moshfegh, American novelist of Eileen, My Year of Rest and Relaxation, Death in Her Hands, and Lapvona; PEN/Hemingway winner, Booker-shortlisted, known for isolated, bodily candid narrators.
Owen King
Owen King (Owen Philip King, born 1979, Maine) is an American novelist, short-story writer, and screenwriter, youngest son of Stephen and Tabitha King; author of Double Feature and The Curator, coauthor of Sleeping Beauties (2017), and writer-producer on Paramount+'s The Stand.
Paul Auster
Paul Auster (1947-2024), American novelist, memoirist, poet and screenwriter, author of The New York Trilogy, Smoke, 4 3 2 1 and Baumgartner; Brooklyn-based, France-beloved postmodernist.
Percival Everett
Percival Everett (born 1956) is an American novelist, poet, and USC English professor, author of Erasure, The Trees, Dr. No, and James, the 2024 National Book Award and 2025 Pulitzer Prize-winning retelling of Huckleberry Finn.
Richard Ford
Richard Ford (born 1944, Jackson, Mississippi), American novelist of the Frank Bascombe series (The Sportswriter, Independence Day), first novelist to win both the Pulitzer Prize and PEN/Faulkner Award for one novel.
Richard Powers
Richard Powers is an American novelist who fuses scientific and technical subject matter with literary narrative. He is best known for The Overstory, the 2019 Pulitzer Prize winner.
Rick Moody
Rick Moody (Hiram F. Moody III, born 1961), American novelist of Garden State, The Ice Storm, and Purple America, plus The Black Veil memoir; Pushcart, Guggenheim, Bonderman Professor at Brown; also records with the Wingdale Community Singers.
Rufi Thorpe
Rufi Thorpe, American novelist (MFA University of Virginia, 2009), author of four literary fiction novels: The Girls from Corona del Mar (2014), The Knockout Queen (PEN/Faulkner finalist), and the Kirkus Prize-finalist Margo's Got Money Troubles (2024), adapted for Apple TV+.
Ryka Aoki
Ryka Aoki, American poet, composer, and novelist; author of He Mele a Hilo (2014) and Light From Uncommon Stars (2021), which won the Otherwise, Alex, and Stonewall Awards and was a Hugo finalist.
Sandra Cisneros
Sandra Cisneros, Chicago-born (1954) Chicana writer, author of The House on Mango Street, Woman Hollering Creek, and Caramelo; MacArthur Fellow and 2016 National Medal of Arts recipient.
Sapphire (author)
Sapphire, pen name of Ramona Lofton (born 1950), American poet and novelist; her 1996 debut Push, about Harlem teenager Precious Jones, won the Stephen Crane Award and became the film Precious (2009).
Shelby Van Pelt
Shelby Van Pelt, American novelist, author of the 2022 debut bestseller Remarkably Bright Creatures (Marcellus the octopus, Tova Sullivan); Heartland Prize winner; Netflix film adaptation with Sally Field.
Sherman Alexie
Sherman Alexie (born 1966) is a Spokane/Coeur d'Alene poet, novelist, and filmmaker from the Spokane Indian Reservation in Wellpinit, Washington. Known for The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, Reservation Blues, and the 2007 National Book Award-winning The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian; his screenplay Smoke Signals won awards at the 1998 Sundance Film Festival. Publicly alleged sexual misconduct surfaced in 2018.
Sister Souljah
Sister Souljah (Lisa Williamson, born 1964, Bronx) is an American hip-hop artist, activist, and author of The Coldest Winter Ever; her 1992 clash with Bill Clinton created the political phrase "Sister Souljah moment."
Stephen Chbosky
Stephen Chbosky (born 1972) is an American novelist, screenwriter, and director, author of The Perks of Being a Wallflower (1999), which he filmed in 2012, and director of Wonder (2017) and Nonnas (2025).
Susanna Moore
Susanna Moore, American novelist and memoirist born 1945/1946 in Hawaii, author of My Old Sweetheart, the 1995 erotic thriller In the Cut (filmed by Jane Campion), and the 2020 memoir Miss Aluminum.
Tabitha King
Tabitha King (born 1949), also Tabby King, is an American novelist from Old Town, Maine, wife of Stephen King, author of Small World, the Nodd's Ridge novels, One on One, and Candles Burning, and co-runner of the King Foundation.
Tama Janowitz
Tama Janowitz, born 1957 in San Francisco, is an American novelist and short-story writer whose 1986 bestseller Slaves of New York satirized downtown Manhattan's art scene.
Teju Cole
Teju Cole, pen name of Obayemi Babajide Adetokunbo Onafuwa, is a Nigerian American writer and photographer best known for his award-winning 2011 novel Open City.
Terry McMillan
Terry McMillan (born 1951, Port Huron, Michigan) is the American novelist of Mama, Waiting to Exhale, and How Stella Got Her Groove Back, whose 1990s bestsellers and film hits opened publishing to Black women's contemporary fiction.
Tom Perrotta
Tom Perrotta, born Thomas R. Perrotta in 1961, is an American novelist and screenwriter whose comic satires of suburban life include Election, Little Children, and The Leftovers.
Viet Thanh Nguyen
Viet Thanh Nguyen (Nguyễn Thanh Việt, born 1971) is a Vietnamese American novelist and USC professor whose debut novel The Sympathizer (2015) won the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction; he later wrote The Committed, The Refugees, Nothing Ever Dies, and the memoir A Man of Two Faces.
Walter Kirn
Walter Kirn (born 1962, Akron, Ohio) is the American novelist and critic of Thumbsucker, Up in the Air, Lost in the Meritocracy, and Blood Will Out; two novels became films, and he edits County Highway.
Winston Groom
Winston Groom (Winston Francis Groom Jr., 1943-2020), American novelist and historian, author of Forrest Gump (1986), basis of the 1994 six-Oscar film; also wrote Vietnam novels and military history including Shrouds of Glory.