247 articles
John Rollin Ridge
John Rollin Ridge, who wrote as Yellow Bird, was a Cherokee writer and editor whose 1854 Joaquín Murieta novel was the first by a Native American author.
John Steinbeck
John Steinbeck (1902–1968), Salinas-born American novelist and 1962 Nobel laureate, author of Tortilla Flat, The Grapes of Wrath (Pulitzer Prize), East of Eden, and Travels with Charley.
John Updike
John Hoyer Updike (1932–2009), American novelist, poet, and critic, author of the Rabbit Angstrom tetralogy and two Pulitzer Prizes for Fiction, chronicler of middle-class American life.
Jonathan Ames
Jonathan Ames (born 1964) is an American novelist, essayist, and TV writer, author of The Extra Man, Wake Up, Sir!, and You Were Never Really Here, and creator of HBO's Bored to Death and Starz's Blunt Talk.
Jonathan Baumbach
Jonathan Baumbach (1933–2019), American experimental novelist, film critic, and Brooklyn College professor; co-founded the Fiction Collective/FC2 with Peter Spielberg; author of Reruns, B, and Dreams of Molly; father of filmmaker Noah Baumbach.
Jonathan Franzen
Jonathan Franzen, born 1959, American novelist and essayist; author of The Twenty-Seventh City, The Corrections (2001 National Book Award), Freedom, Purity, and Crossroads; known for the Oprah Book Club controversy and the 2010 Time 'Great American Novelist' cover.
Jonathan Safran Foer
Jonathan Safran Foer (born 1977), also known for Everything Is Illuminated and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, is an American-Jewish novelist; his experimental, typographically playful novels treat Holocaust and 9/11 trauma.
Joseph Heller
Joseph Heller (1923–1999), American novelist and WWII bombardier from Coney Island, Brooklyn; author of Catch-22 (1961), which sold over ten million copies, plus Something Happened, God Knows, and Closing Time.
Joshua Braff
Joshua Braff (born 1967) is an American novelist, brother of actor Zach Braff, author of The Unthinkable Thoughts of Jacob Green (2004), Peep Show (2010), and the self-published The Daddy Diaries (2015).
Joyce Carol Oates
Joyce Carol Oates (born 1938, Lockport, New York), also published as Rosamond Smith and Lauren Kelly, is a prolific American novelist, story writer, and essayist; National Book Award 1970 for them, Pulitzer finalist five times, Princeton professor since 1978.
Joyce Maynard
Joyce Maynard (born 1953) is an American novelist and memoirist, author of Labor Day, To Die For, and At Home in the World, known for her 1972 New York Times essay and her relationship with J. D. Salinger.
JT LeRoy
JT LeRoy was a fictitious author persona created by Laura Albert, who wrote Sarah and The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things; Savannah Knoop played LeRoy in public until the 2005-2006 New York magazine and Times exposés.
Junot Díaz
Junot Díaz is a Dominican American writer best known for his 2007 novel The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, which won the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.
Kate Chopin
Kate Chopin, born Katherine O'Flaherty (1850–1904), was an American writer of novels and short stories set mostly in Louisiana, best known for The Awakening (1899).
Katherine Anne Porter
Katherine Anne Porter (Callie Russell Porter, 1890–1980), American short-story writer and journalist, author of "Flowering Judas," "Pale Horse, Pale Rider," "Noon Wine," and the only novel Ship of Fools (1962); Pulitzer and National Book Award winner, Texas-born modernist.
Katherine Dunn
Katherine Dunn (1945–2016), American Portland novelist and boxing journalist, author of Geek Love (1989), a National Book Award finalist about a carnival family that engineers its own freak-show children; also wrote Attic, Truck, and posthumous Toad.
Kathy Acker
Kathy Acker (1947-1997) was an American experimental novelist and performance artist of punk feminism, known for Blood and Guts in High School and Empire of the Senseless and for cut-up collage and plagiarism of Genet, Burroughs, and Gibson.
Ken Kesey
Ken Kesey (1935–2001), American novelist of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and Sometimes a Great Notion, Merry Pranksters leader of the 1964 Furthur bus trip and Acid Tests, later an Oregon farmer and author of Sailor Song.
Kristin Gore
Kristin Gore (born 1977), American writer and daughter of Al Gore; comedy writer on Futurama and Saturday Night Live, author of Sammy's Hill, Sammy's House, and Sweet Jiminy, and co-director of The Beanie Bubble (2023).
Kurt Vonnegut
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (1922–2007), American satirical novelist of Slaughterhouse-Five and Cat's Cradle, Dresden POW, GE publicist, resister of the science-fiction label, and also a visual artist.
Leslie Marmon Silko
Leslie Marmon Silko, born 1948 in Albuquerque, New Mexico, is an American novelist and poet of Laguna Pueblo ancestry, a leading figure in the Native American literary renaissance.
Lionel Shriver
Lionel Shriver (born Margaret Ann Shriver, 1957) is an American novelist and Spectator columnist, author of We Need to Talk About Kevin (2003), winner of the 2005 Orange Prize and adapted into Lynne Ramsay's 2011 film starring Tilda Swinton.
Lorrie Moore
Lorrie Moore (Marie Lorena Moore, born 1957, Glens Falls, New York) is an American short-story writer and novelist, author of Self-Help, Birds of America, Bark, and the NBCC Award-winning novel I Am Homeless If This Is Not My Home; known for second-person narration and deadpan wit.
Louisa May Alcott
Louisa May Alcott (1832-1888), American author born in Germantown, Pennsylvania, raised in Concord, Massachusetts, best known for Little Women (1868-69) and also wrote sensation fiction under pseudonyms A. M. Barnard and Flora Fairfield; Civil War nurse whose Hospital Sketches (1863) made her famous.
Louise Erdrich
Louise Erdrich (Karen Louise Erdrich, born 1954) is an Ojibwe American novelist of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa, author of Love Medicine, The Round House (National Book Award), and The Night Watchman (Pulitzer), and owner of Birchbark Books.
Lydia Davis
Lydia Davis, born in 1947, is an American short-story writer and translator known for very short fiction and for translations of Proust's Swann's Way and Flaubert's Madame Bovary.
MacKenzie Scott
MacKenzie Scott, American novelist and philanthropist, ex-wife of Jeff Bezos, author of The Testing of Luther Albright, Traps, and the 2026 Substack serialization Last Days in Two Nations; has given $26.3 billion since 2019 through unrestricted grants via Yield Giving.
Madeline Cash
Madeline Cash, American writer, author of Earth Angel (2023) and the debut novel Lost Lambs (FSG, 2026), and co-founder of Forever Magazine; grew up in the San Fernando Valley and studied at Sarah Lawrence.
Marianne Wiggins
Marianne Wiggins (born 1947, Lancaster, Pennsylvania) is an American novelist, author of John Dollar, Evidence of Things Unseen (National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize finalist), The Shadow Catcher, and Properties of Thirst; former wife of Salman Rushdie.
Marilynne Robinson
Marilynne Robinson (born 1943, Sandpoint, Idaho) is an American novelist and essayist, author of Housekeeping (1980) and the Gilead trilogy: Gilead (2005 Pulitzer Prize), Home (2009 Orange Prize), and Lila (2014).