It’s the birthday of internationally acclaimed writer Colum McCann (b. 1965), author of three story collections and six novels, including the international bestsellers Let the Great World Spin (2009) and Transatlantic (2013). McCann was born and raised in Ireland, where he started out as a journalist in The Irish Press. He moved to the U.S. [...]
It’s the birthday of an author said by Eleanor Roosevelt to be “one of the ten most influential women in the United States,” Dorothy Canfield Fisher (1879-1958), who brought the Montessori Method to the U.S., wrote 40 books of fiction and nonfiction, and most importantly wrote one of my all-time favorite children’s novels, Understood Betsy [...]
It’s the birthday of one of the bestselling authors of all time, Sidney Sheldon (1917-2007, #nicelonglife), who wrote movie screenplays like The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer and sitcoms like I Dream of Jeannie before becoming a suspense novelist who would sell 300 million books. (I’m way too young for The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer, but [...]
It’s the birthday of bestselling children’s book author/illustrator Mark Teague (b. 1963), perhaps best known for illustrating the rollicking How Do Dinosaurs…? series (author Jane Yolen), illustrating the beloved Poppleton series (author Cynthia Rylant), and writing and illustrating the wildly popular Dear Mrs. LaRue series. (If you haven’t had the pleasure of reading a Teague [...]
NB: This is a re-post from last year. Hard to find an author with more interesting life details than Christopher Marlowe. It’s the birthday (possibly) of Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593, #diedtooyoung), who would be considered the greatest Elizabethan poet and dramatist if William Shakespeare hadn’t gotten all grabby about it. Marlowe’s great contribution was his creation [...]