JULY LITERARY BIRTHDAYS
(Complete list of July authors here.)Featured Authors
William Makepeace Thackeray, Victorian novelist, July 18, 1811 - Dec. 24, 1863
Extensive overview of Thackery from The Victorian Web, including biographical materials, articles, drawings, bibliography, criticism, etc.; an online edition of Vanity Fair ; an online edition of Barry Lyndon.
Henry David Thoreau, American writer and Transcendentalist, July 12, 1817 - May 6, 1862
The Writings of Henry D. Thoreau - very good site, with correspondence, handwriting, manuscripts, life and times, Thoreau FAQ, further reading, lots of related links, more. Links to full texts of several of Thoreau's writings, including Civil Disobedience, Life Without Principle, Walden, Cape Cod, and Walking. Thoreau at the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, with sections on biographical info; Subjectivity, Philosophy, and Writing; Education and Uncommon Sense; Nature and Ontology; Religion and the Wild; An Ethic of Preservative Care; Disobedient Politics. Also, a botanical index to Thoreau's journal.
Ernest [Miller] Hemingway, American novelist and short-story writer, July 21, 1899 - July 2, 1961
Hemingway was born in Oak Park, Illinois; his father, a doctor, took him on hunting and fishing trips in Michigan, the setting of Hemingway's first short stories. In World War I, he served first as an ambulance driver in Italy, then was seriously wounded while serving with the Italian army. In the early 1920s, he worked in Europe as a newspaper correspondent for the Toronto Star, where he met Gertrude Stein and Ezra Pound in Paris; this time is chronicled in his memoir, A Moveable Feast (1964). Married four times, Hemingway ended his own life with a shotgun in Ketchum, Idaho.
Hemingway's first novel was The Torrents of Spring (1924), followed by The Sun Also Rises (1926), and two non-fiction works, Death in the Afternoon (1932) and The Green Hills of Africa (1935). During the Spanish Civil War, Hemingway again worked as a news correspondent and from that experience wrote the play The Fifth Column (1938) and the novel For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940). He then lived in Key West, Florida, and finally settled in Cuba from 1939 to 1960, writing Across the River and Into the Trees (1950) and The Old Man and the Sea (1953), which won the 1953 Pulitzer prize; he also won the 1954 Nobel prize for literature. The novel Islands in the Stream (1970) was published after his death.
The Hemingway Society: Virtual Hemingway has over 350 Hemingway-related links organized into more than 20 categories. There's a 1958 interview with Hemingway at The Paris Review. For a bio and more links, try the Nobel Prize Page on Hemingway.
Pablo Neruda, Chilean poet and Nobel Prize winner, 12 July 1904 - September 1973
Neruda, hosted by the Universidad de Chile (en Espanol), with timeline, bio, works, interviews, criticism, collections, and Neruda Foundation info; Neruda bio and bibliography at Authors' Calendar.Nobel Prize bio on Neruda, with links to other info.
Other July Birthdays
- July 1
- French novelist George Sand (1804; d.1876) aka Aurore Dudevant
- Cincinnati-born teacher and editor William Strunk, Jr. (1869; d.1946), who, with E.B. White, wrote the enduring The Elements of Style
- Minnesotan novelist (born Annapolis MD) James M. Cain (1892; d.1977)
- Georgia native, Harlem Renaissance novelist, essayist, and political activist Walter [Francis] White (1893; d.1955)
- Irna Phillips (1901; d.1973), radio script writer who developed the soap opera genre as well as most famous radio and TV soap operas, including 'Guiding Light'
- Juan Carlos Onetti (1909; d.1994), Uruguayan novelist and short-story writer (later became Spanish citizen)
- California-born novelist, short story writer, and Pulitzer Prize winner Jean Stafford (1915; d.1979)
- July 2
- German-Swiss novelist and poet Hermann Hesse (1877; d.1962), who received the Nobel prize for literature in 1946, and whose novels, including Siddhartha (1922) and Magister Ludi (1943), are lyrical, mystical, and symbolic
- Polish poet and Nobel Prize winner Wislawa Szymborska (1923; d.2012)
- English novelist Francis Wyndham (1924; d.2017), who wrote of wartime Britain
- Philadelphia-born African-American dramatist Ed Bullins (1935) aka Kingsley B. Bass, Jr.
- Chicago-born artist and feminist Judy Chicago (1939, née Gerowitz)
- July 3
- New Englander and feminist theorist, social critic, essayist, lecturer and writer Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1860; d.1935), author of The Yellow Wallpaper (1892), among others
- Czech writer Franz Kafka (1883; d.1924), whose novels -- including Der Prozess (1925; transl. The Trial) and Das Schloss (1926; transl. The Castle) -- were published against his wishes after his death
- Connecticut-born biographer, short story writer, Flaubert expert, and novelist Francis Steegmuller (1906; d.1994)
- Michigan-born food lover and writer M.F.K. Fisher (1908, née Mary Frances Kennedy; d.1992)
- English novelist and short story writer Elizabeth Taylor (1912, née Coles; d.1975)
- NYC-born folklorist and children's author and illustrator Ashley F. Bryan (1923)
- Tony-winning Vzech-born British playwright Tom Stoppard (1937, born Tomáš Straussler)
- July 4
- Saxony poet and novelist Christian Fürchtegott Gellert (1715; d.1769)
- American novelist and short story writer (born Salem, Mass.) Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804; d.1864), author of The House of the Seven Gables (1851) and The Scarlet Letter (1850), among others
- American song writer Stephen Collins Foster (1826; d.1864), who penned Oh! Susanna (1848) and My Old Kentucky Home (1853), among many
- Mao Tun (or Mao Dun) aka Shen Yan-bing, Shen Yen-Ping, Shen Dehong (1896; d.1981), Chinese novelist, editor, and communist ideologue
- NYC-born literary critic and essayist Lionel Trilling (1905; d.1975)
- American playwright and screenwriter Neil Simon (1927; d.2018), whose screenplays include Barefoot in the Park (1963), The Odd Couple (1964), Plaza Suite (1969), The Sunshine Boys (1974), Murder by Death (1977), and Biloxi Blues (1984), which won a Tony; he won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and a Tony Award for Lost in Yonkers (1990) and a Golden Globe for The Goodbye Girl (1977)
- Illinois native, African American beat poet, jazz musician, and surrealist painter Ted Joans (1928; d.2003)
- Tomaž Šalamun (1941; d.2014), Slovenian neo-avant-garde and absurdist poet
- July 5
- English traveler, linguist, and prose writer George Borrow (1803; d.1881)
- French writer, artist, and filmmaker Jean Cocteau (1889; d.1963)
- Longtime Detroit poet laureate, African American poet, educator, and publisher Naomi Long Madgett (1923; d.2020) aka Naomi Cornelia Long and Naomi Long Witherspoon, important for her role in introducing African American literature into school classrooms
- Jean Raspail (1925; d.2020), who won the Académie Française grand prize in 1981 and whose novel The Camp of the Saints -- envisioning a takeover of the Western world by immigrants from developing countries -- was embraced as a cautionary tale by white-supremacists and far-right political figures
- Mosambiquean novelist, short-story writer, journalist, poet, and environmental activist Mia Couto (1955, born António Emílio Leite Couto), winner of the 2014 Neustadt International Prize for Literature; his novel Terra sonâmbula (1992, Sleepwalking Land), about the Mozambican Civil War, is considered one of the best 20th-century African novels
- July 6
- Swedish poet and novelist Verner von Heidenstam (1859; d.1940)
- Finnish poet, playwright, and novelist Eino Leino (1878; d.1926)
- Botswanian novelist and short story writer (born in South Africa) Bessie [Amalia Emery] Head (1937; d.1986)
- July 7
- Jan Neruda (1834; d.1891), Czech writer and poet of the Czech Realism school
- Soviet Georgian poet Vladimir Mayakovsky (1893; d.1930)
- prolific Croation novelist, poet, essayist, short-story writer, and playwright Miroslav Krleza (1893; d.1981)
- Missouri-born science-fiction writer Robert Heinlein (1907; d.1988), who wrote the classic Stranger in a Strange Land (1961)
- Kentucky novelist (wrote The Dollmaker) Harriette Arnow (1908; d.1986)
- Alabama native, African American poet and novelist Margaret [Abigail] Walker (1915; d.1998)
- American writer Jean Kerr (1923; d.2003), who wrote Please Don't Eat the Daisies (1957)
- American (born Memphis, TN) best-selling novelist Eric Jerome Dickey (1961; d.2021), whose fiction often featured strong black women
- July 8
- Prolific French poet and fable-writer Jean de La Fontaine (1621; d.1695), whose major work, Fables (1668-1694), was published in 12 volumes
- American satirical poet (born Connecticut) Fitz-Greene Halleck (1790; d.1867), member of the Knickerbocker Group with Washington Irving, William Cullen Bryant, and others
- V[eikko] A[ntero] Koskenniemi (1885, née Forsnäs; d. 1962), Finnish scholar, writer, critic, professor, one of the most prominent figures in Finnish literature in his day; he wrote the lyrics (1941) for Jean Sibelius's tone poem Finlandia
- Evelyn Waugh's brother, the novelist Alec Waugh (1898; d.1981), who wrote Island in the Sun (1956)
- On Death and Dying author Dr. Elizabeth Kubler-Ross (1926; d.2004), born in Zurich, Switzerland
- Southern novelist, short-story writer, and Pulitzer Prize winner Shirley Ann Grau (1929; d.2020)
- Philadelphia native, columnist and novelist Anna Quindlen (1953)
- July 9
- Ann Radcliffe, London-born Gothic novelist (1764; d.1823)
- NY-born journalist Dorothy Thompson (1894;d.1961), the first journalist to be expelled from Germany by the Nazis
- English romance novelist [Mary] Barbara [Hamilton] Cartland aka Barbara McCorquodale (1901; d.2000), who wrote 723 novels, mostly romances
- David Mandessi Diop (1927; d.1960, plane crash), French West African poet known for his contribution to the Négritude literary movement
- British neurologist Oliver Sacks (1933; d.2015), who wrote Awakenings (later made into a movie), and a number of popular books on neurological phenomena
- Harlem-born bisexual poet, novelist, children's author, and essayist June Jordan (1936; d.2002) aka June Meyer
- July 10
- London-born English naval officer and adventure novelist Captain Frederick Marryat (1792; d.1848)
- French novelist (Remembrance of Things Past, of which Swann's Way is the first book) Marcel Proust (1871; d.1922)
- John Wyndham (1903, born John Wyndham Parkes Lucas Beynon Harris; d.1969), English science-fiction writer, author of apocalyptic novels The Day of the Triffids (1951), The Kraken Wakes (1953), and The Chrysalids (1955)
- Canadian short story writer Alice Munro (1931), who won the 2013 Nobel Prize in Literature
- July 11
- Robert Greene, English dramatist (1558, baptised on this date; d.1592), popular in his day and now best known for a posthumous pamphlet attributed to him, Greene's Groats-Worth of Witte, bought with a million of Repentance (1592)
- NYC-born Susan Bogert Warner (1819; d.1885), pen name Elizabeth Wetherell, prolific and popular novelist, the first American author to sell a million copies of one book, The Wide, Wide World (1850)
- New England writer E[lwyn] B[rooks] White (1899; d.1985), long-time contributor to The New Yorker, famous for his essays and his children's books, Stuart Little (1945),Charlotte's Web (1952), and The Trumpet of the Swan (1973), as well as for his updated versions of Williams Strunk Jr's The Elements of Style
- NYC-born Presbyterian minister, writer, theologian (Carl) Frederick Buechner (1926)
- NYC native literary critic Harold Bloom (1930; d.2019)
- historian, professor, and Pulitzer Prize winner for A Midwife's Tale (1991 Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, born in Idaho (1938), professor at University of New Hampshire for 15 years, then at Harvard for over 20 years
- July 12
- In addition to Thoreau and Neruda,
- German lyric poet and translator Stefan [Anton] George (1868; d. 1933), known for his linguistic inventiveness and originality, which inspired his followers, the George Circle
- Indiana-born artist and children's author Lucy Fitch Perkins (1865; d.1937), known for her international 'twins' series, including The Belgian Twins
- American musical comedy lyricist Oscar [Greeley Clendenning Ritter von] Hammerstein II (1895; d.1960), collaborator with Richard Rodgers on the musicals Oklahoma!, Carousel, South Pacific, The King and I, The Sound of Music, and others
- novelist, essayist, and memoirist Doris [Isaac] Grumbach, born in New York City (1918)
- James Gunn (1923; d.2020), American science fiction novelist, short story writer writer, anthology editor, and Hugo award winner
- NYC-born writer, master of caper-comedies and hard-boiled crime stories Donald E. Westlake (1933; d.2008), who also wrote under the pseudonyms Curt Clark, Tucker Coe, Timothy J. Culver, Samuel Holt, and Richard Stark
- July 13
- English 'peasant' poet John Clare (1793; d.1864)
- Russian short story writer, playwright, translator, and war correspondent Isaac Babel (1894 [old style: 1 July]; d.1940, executed by the Russian People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs)
- English playwright, screenwriter, novelist and professional rugby league footballer, David (Malcolm) Storey (1933; d.2017), who won the Booker Prize for his novel Saville (1976)
- Nigerian dramatist, poet, and novelist Akinwande Oluwole Soyinka aka Wole Soyinka (1934), the first black person to be awarded the Nobel Prize in literature (in 1986)
- July 14
- John Gibson Lockhart (1794; d.1854), British lawyer, novelist and critic
- Owen Wister (1860; d.1938), writer of Westerns (The Virginian)
- U.S. author Irving Stone (1903; d.1989)
- Yiddish/Polish novelist and Nobelist Isaac Bashevis Singer (1904; d.1991) néeYitskhek Bashyevis Zinger
- Oklahoma songwriter/singer Woody Guthrie née Woodrow Wilson Guthrie (1912; d.1967)
- Italian novelist Natalia Ginzburg (1916; d.1991)
- playwright (West Side Story, Gypsy) Arthur Laurents (1918; d.2011)
- July 15
- Clement Clarke Moore (1779; d.1863), supposed author of 'Twas the Night Before Christmas
- Sussex-born adventure writer [Ralph] Hammond Innes (1913; d.1998)
- Irish novelist Dame Iris Murdoch (1919; d.1999)
- French-Moroccan novelist Driss Chraïbi (1926; d.2007), father of the modern Moroccan novel
- English playwright Ann Jellicoe (1927; d.2017)
- prolific, best-selling American adventure novelist Clive Eric Cussler (1931; d.2020)
- July 16
- Finnish poet (fable poems), theologian, memoirist, and novelist Lauri Pohjanpää aka Lauri Nordqvist (1889; d.1962)
- Ohio native, African-American poet, essayist, dramatist, and TV producer Mari Evans (1923; d.2017)
- Shirley Hughes (1927; d.2022), beloved and prolific British children's author and illustrator, including the Dogger and the Alfie series
- British novelist and art historian Anita Brookner (1928; d.2016)
- Cuban novelist Reinaldo Arenas (1943; d.1990)
- July 17
- Israeli novelist Shmuel Agnon (1888; d.1970)
- Perry Mason-creator Erle Stanley Gardner (1889; d.1970)
- Australian novelist Christina Stead (1902; d.1983), whose best-known novel is The Man Who Loved Children
- Paris-born short-story writer, essayist, novelist, feminist, and social critic Christiane Rochefort (1917; d.1998)
- American journalist (born Vienna) Erwin Knoll (1931; d.1994), editor-in-chief (1973-94) for The Progressive magazine
- July 18
- Besides Thackeray,
- French poet Tristan Corbiere (1845; d.1875), born Edouard Joachim Corbiere, precursor of the surrealist and symbolist movements
- Russian-born French novelist, literary critic, and leading theorist of the nouveau roman Nathalie Sarraute aka Nathalie Ilyanova Tcherniak (1900; d.1999)
- Indiana-born novelist Jessamyn West (1902; d.1984)
- U.S. playwright Clifford Odets (1906; d.1963)
- Russian poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko (1933; d.2017 in Tulsa, OK, U.S.)
- American journalist Hunter S. Thompson (1937; d.2005)
- July 19
- Gottfried Keller (1819; d. 1890), German-Swiss writer of the realistic school
- New Orleans native, poet, essayist, columnist, and short story writer Alice Moore Dunbar Nelson (1875; d.1935), best known for her prose, married briefly to poet Paul Laurence Dunbar
- A[rchibald].J[oseph]. Cronin (1896; d.1981), English author of Citadel, Shining Victory
- West-Virginia native and thriller writer Stephen Coonts (1946)
- West Virginian short-story writer and novelist Jayne Anne Phillips (1952)
- Philadelphia-born novelist and columnist Denise Gess (1952; d.2009)
- July 20
- Renaissance man of letters Francesco Petrarch (1304; d.1374)
- Swedish poet and 1931 Literature Nobelist Erik Karlfeldt (1864; d.1931)
- Southern (U.S.) writer Elizabeth Spencer (1921; d.2019), novelist and short story writer, best known for a 1960 novella, The Light in the Piazza, set in Italy
- French (born Martinique, Caribbean) revolutionary Frantz Fanon (1925; d.1961), whose writings influenced the radical movements in the 1960s in the U.S. and Europe
- Rhode Island-born, Tennessee-raised novelist Cormac McCarthy (1933)
- Arkansas-born novelist, short story writer, and poet Henry L. Dumas (1934; d.1968, shot by police in a case of mistaken identity)
- July 21
- Besides Hemingway,
- novelist Frances Parkinson Keyes (1885; d.1970)
- Ohio-born poet [Harold] Hart Crane (1899; d.1932, leapt to death from ship as he was returning from Mexico to New York), whose most famous work is The Bridge (1930)
- Finnish poet and translator Yrjö Jylhä (1903;d.1956, suicide)
- Canadian writer and media analyst Marshall McLuhan (1911;d.1980)
- prolific Algerian French-language novelist, short story writer, and poet Mohammed Dib (1920; d.2003), author of the trilogy Algérie (1952-1954)
- NY-born novelist and teacher John Gardner (1933; d. 1982, motorcycle accident)
- Washington-born poet Tess Gallagher (1943)
- Nigerian novelist and children's author Buchi Emecheta (1944; d.2017), who divorced her husband after he read and burned her first novel
- July 22
- Emma Lazarus (1849; d.1887), whose poem "The New Colossus" is enscribed on the Statue of Liberty
- Estonian-born Finnish writer, prominent playwright, Marxist, and businesswoman Hella Maria Wuolijoki (1886; d.1954) née Murrik, aka Juhani Tervapää
- U.S. poet Stephen Vincent Benet (1898; d. 1943), very widely read in his time
- Massachusetts-born mystery writer and alter ego of Bartholomew Gill, Mark McGarrity (1943; d.2002), whose novels feature a shrewd Irish detective
- novelist and children's book writer Caroliva Herron (1947), born in Washington, D.C.
- Los Angeles native and novelist David Shields (1956), who wrote the 1989 comic novel Dead Languages; he's also known for his non-fiction work, including The Trouble With Men: Reflections on Sex, Love, Marriage, Porn, and Power (2019) and Reality Hunger: A Manifesto (2010), a “call to arms for all artists to reject the laws governing appropriation, obliterate the boundaries between fiction and nonfiction, and give rise to a new modern form for a new century.”
- July 23
- Chicago-born mystery writer and creator of Philip Marlowe Raymond Chandler (1888; d.1959)
- Brooklyn-born Hubert Selby, Jr. (1928; d. 2004), known for his violent novels, including Last Exit to Brooklyn
- Novelist John Nichols (1940), who wrote The Sterile Cuckoo and The Milagro Beanfield War
- Native Californian Nancy Mairs (1943; d.2016), poet and autobiographical essayist
- Tennessee native (but Vermonter by choice) and novelist, best known for Kinflicks (1976), Lisa Alther (1944)
- Ohio-born short story writer Lynn Lauber (1953)
- July 24
- Three Musketeers creator Alexandre Dumas pere (1802; d.1870), born Davy de la Pailleterie Dumas
- Danish writer and 1917 Literature Nobelist Henrik Pontoppidan (1857; d. 1943)
- Japanese novelist Junichiro Tanizaki (1886; d.1965), best known for Makioka Sisters (1943-48), an account of a traditional, pre-World War II Osaka family
- prolific British poet, novelist, and translator Robert Graves (1895; d.1985)
- Irish poet and dramatist Lord Edward [John Moreton Crax Plunkett] Dunsany, 18th baron (1878; d.1957), known particularly for fantasy works
- Alabama-born writer and wife of F. Scott Fitzgerald, Zelda Fitzgerald (1900; d.1948; list of Zelda's works as well as Scott's)
- crime novelist and creator of Travis McGee, John D. MacDonald (1916; d.1986)
- July 25
- Bulgarian/British novelist and winner of the1981 Nobel Prize in Literature Elias Canetti (1905; d.1994)
- Minnesota-born editor, writer, birth control proponent Midge Decter (1927), author of The Liberated Woman and Other Americans (1970) and editor at Commentary magazine
- Tennessee-born poet, novelist, playwright, and short story writer David Madden (1933)
- native Minnesotan historical novelist Robyn Carr (1951)
- July 26
- Irish playwright and winner of the 1925 Nobel Prize in Literature George Bernard Shaw (1856; d.1950)
- French biographer, novelist, and essayist André Maurois (1885; 1967), born Émile Salomon Wilhelm Herzog
- British novelist and essayist (though lived in California from 1930s to death), Aldous [Leonard] Huxley (1894; d.1963), best known for novel Brave New World (1932)
- strongly influential through short-lived Indonesian poet (born Sumatra) Anwar Chairil (1922; d.1941)
- Ana María Matute Ausejo (1925; d.2014), Spanish writer, member of the Real Academia Española, winner of the Cervantes Prize
- Massachusetts native and science-fiction writer Lawrence Watt-Evans (1954)
- July 27
- Italian poet and critic Giosue Carducci (1835; d.1907), won 1906 Nobel Prize for Literature, regarded as national poet of modern Italy
- Anglo-French poet, essayist, historian, satirist, and novelist [Joseph] Hilaire [Pierre] Belloc (1870; d.1953), born in St.-Cloud, near Paris, and celebrated for his books of nonsense verse, such as The Bad Child's Book of Beasts (1896)
- Kentucky native Elizabeth Hardwick (1916; d.2007), novelist and essayist
- New Jersey-born longtime Mainer Paul B. Janeczko (1945;d.2019), teacher, poet, and children’s poetry anthologist
- July 28
- British Christian poet Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844; d.1889), one of the great poets of the Victorian era
- British children's author [Helen] Beatrix Potter (1866; d.1943)
- U.S. free verse poet and novelist Kenneth Fearing (1902; d.1961)
- English novelist, short story writer, and poet [Clarence] Malcolm Lowry (1909; d.1957), who wrote Under the Volcano (1947, later made into a film)
- Pulitzer Prize winning poet from Rochester, N.Y., John Ashbery (1927; d.2017)
- July 29
- French political scientist and writer Alexis de Tocqueville (1805; d.1859), author of the four-volume Democracy in America
- U.S. novelist Booth Tarkington (1869; d.1946)
- creator of archy & mehitabel, U.S. journalist and poet Don Marquis (1878; d.1937)
- Swedish novelist and Nobelist Eyvind Johnson (1900; d.1976)
- Worcester, Mass., native and poet Stanley Kunitz (1905; d.2006), former Poet Laureate of the U.S., who won both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award
- Missouri-born African American novelist Chester Himes (1909; d.1984), who lived most of his adult life in Europe and whose popular and violent detective novels were set in Harlem and featured Grave Digger Jones and Coffin Ed Johnson
- Harry Kurt Victor Mulisch (1927; d.2010), well-known Dutch writer on war, especially the Holocaust
- South Korean-born American novelist Chang-rae Lee (1965), who won the PEN Award for Native Speaker (1995)
- July 30
- Italian painter, architect, and author of The Lives of the Artists Giorgio Vasari (1511; d.1574)
- Emily [Jane] Bronte (1818;d.1848, consumption/TB), whose only novel was Wuthering Heights (1847)
- L.A. native and novelist Jose Antonio Villarreal (1924; d.2010), whose books concern Chicano life in the American Southwest
- Indiana-born hard-boiled crime fiction writer L[arry].A[lan]. Morse (1945)
- New York native (now lives Vermont) and mystery writer Archer Mayor (1950), creator of policeman Joe Gunther
- July 31
- Prolific American writer (born Chicago, raised West Texas), creator of detective Michael Shayne, Brett Halliday (1904; d.1977), nee Davis Dresser, aka Asa Baker, Mathew Blood, Kathryn Culver, Don Davis, Hal Debrett, Anthony Scott, Anderson Wayne
- Italian chemist and writer Primo Levi (1919; d.1987), who wrote If This Is a Man, his account of surviving Auschwitz
- NYC novelist, short story writer, and memoirist Susan Cheever (1943), who wrote Home before Dark, a memoir of her father, the writer John Cheever, and Note Found in a Bottle, about her own 'life as a drinker'
- Nashville-born Steven Womack (1952), author of two detective series
- Harry Potter series writer JK Rowling, OBE, born Joanne 'Jo' Rowling (1965)
- American writer Elizabeth Lee Wurtzel (1967; d.2020), author of the 1994 confessional memoir Prozac Nation: Young and Depressed in America