Literary Biography

William Faulkner: a titan of American literature. You probably already know all about his life and work, right? No? Don’t sweat it! In five minutes, we’ll bring you up to speed on this national treasure. First we’ll fill you in on a few key facts about his career, and then we’ll hit five important aspects of his writing that are guaranteed to impress friends, family, and potential dates.

The nice guy next door was hiding a dark secret - a homicidal obsession with young girls. It didn't end until his final victim, still bound in handcuffs, escaped while he slept. She recounted the details of a night of horror spent with an elusive serial killer. Neither family nor friends saw Richard Marc Evonitz's dark side - he saved that for his victims - until his double life came undone by a courageous, resourceful 15-year-old. The authorities had questions about many unsolved cold cases, but Evonitz had one more shocking surprise in store for everyone. Into the Water is a cautionary tale about the vulnerability of our children.

Geneviève Halévy Bizet Straus; Laure de Sade, Comtesse de Adhéaume de Chevigné; and Élisabeth de Riquet de Caraman-Chimay, the Comtesse Greffulhe--these were the three superstars of fin-de-siècle Parisian high society who, as Caroline Weber says, "transformed themselves, and were transformed by those around them, into living legends: paragons of elegance, nobility, and style."

There are artists out there able to lift the spirits of the downtrodden, who point towards a better world with all they are. Sometimes, they do this in DIY punk style: raw, unplugged, and deeply human. Patrick Schneeweis, better known as Pat the Bunny, is an artist who chose the road less travelled, instinctively deeming it more honest and less controlling. Freer. He grew up in Vermont, where he found people liked his voice and the controversial topics he tackled, and by 16 years old, he had released his first album ‘Fire Hazard’.

This inspiring biography tells the story of New York City's first Puerto Rican librarian, a woman who championed bilingual literature. When she came to America in 1921, Pura Belpré carried the cuentos folklóricos of her Puerto Rican homeland. Finding a new home at the New York Public Library as a bilingual assistant, she turned her popular retellings into libros and spread story seeds across the land. Today, these seeds have grown into a lush landscape as generations of children and storytellers continue to share her tales and celebrate Pura’s legacy.

On the edge of the remote salt flats of Australia, a young woman blows in from nowhere and disturbs the precarious equilibrium of a family farm. The boy is fascinated by her, his mother despises her, and the brutish farmhand wants to possess her. When the woman mysteriously disappears, the only trace of her a bloodied dress, the boy sets out in search of an Indian hawker who may or may not have the answers. As he journeys through the broken landscape, accompanied only by his horse and his dog, the boy becomes aware of another party converging murderously on his destination.

Gary Soto writes that when he was five "what I knew best was at ground level." In this lively collection of short essays, Soto takes his listener to a ground-level perspective, recreating in vivid detail the sights, sounds, smells, and textures he knew growing up in his Fresno, California, neighborhood. The "things" of his boyhood tie it all together: his Buddha "splotched with gold", the taps of his shoes, and the "engines of sparks that lived beneath my soles", his worn tennies smelling of "summer grass, asphalt, the moist sock breathing the defeat of baseball". The child’s world is made up of small things - small, very important things.

When Rebecca Barry and her husband moved to upstate New York to start their family, they wanted to be surrounded by natural beauty but close to a small urban center, doing work they loved, and plenty of time to spend with their kids. But living their dreams turned out not to be so simple.

This is a gritty story of a badminton star, Pullela Gopi Chand, who brought laurels to India by winning the coveted All England Championships in 2001. The player for whom losing was not an option, who went against all rules and conventions. This book , the authorised biography of Pullela Gopichand, is about his rise from humble beginnings to become a star on Indian Badminton's horizon, as well as his endeavours to produce more sports icons like him through his one-of-a-kind badminton Academy.

Stan Lee is one of the most influential people in the comic book world. The memorable heroes he created, including Spider-Man, Iron Man, the X-Men, and Daredevil, helped build Marvel Comics into the publishing powerhouse we know today.

The history of wives is largely one of silence, resilience, and forbearance. Toss in celebrity, male privilege, ruthless ambition, narcissism, misogyny, infidelity, alcoholism, and a mood disorder or two, and it's easy to understand why the marriages of so many famous writers have been stormy, short-lived, and mutually destructive. "It's been my experience," as the critic and novelist Elizabeth Hardwick once wrote, "that nobody holds a man's brutality to his wife against him." Literary wives are a unique breed, requiring a particular kind of fortitude.

It’s tough being an author these days, and it’s getting harder. But, as Jason Boog shows in a rich mix of history and politics, this is not the first period when writers have struggled to scratch a living. Between accounts of contemporary layoffs and shrinking paychecks for authors and publishing professionals are stories from the 1930s when writers, hard hit by the Great Depression, fought to create unions and New Deal projects like the Federal Writers Project.

R. L. Stine has written hundreds of children's books, including the scary, creepy Goosebumps series. His books have inspired TV shows and movies. Learn more about Stine's life as a famous writer!

Since its publication on September 30, 1868, Little Women has been one of America's favorite stories. While we now think of it as a girls' book, it was initially read by both boys and girls, men and women of all ages. Professor Anne Boyd Rioux, who read it in her 20s, tells us how Louisa May Alcott came to write the book and drew inspiration for her story from her own life. Rioux sees the novel's beating heart in its honest look at adolescence and its inspiring vision of young women's resilience and hope.

Before he won stunning acclaim as one of today's most gifted southern writers, Larry Brown was a firefighter with the Oxford, Mississippi, Fire Department. On Fire, his powerful and unflinching account of this experience, catapults listeners into the daily trauma all firefighters face, from the blistering heat of burning homes to the crunch of broken glass at crash scenes.

One of America's favorite African-American storytellers remembers her childhood in tender, unforgettable new stories. Jackie Torrence, a frequent headliner at the National Storytelling Festival, is known to audiences nationwide as The Story Lady.

One of the most important patriots in post-Revolutionary times. Most people know Noah Webster for his dictionary masterpieces and his promotion of a living "American Language" that embraces words and idioms from all its immigrant peoples. But he was also the driving force behind universal education for all citizens, including slaves, females, and adult learners. Speaker of twenty languages, he developed the new country's curriculum, writing and publishing American literature, American history, and American geography. He published New York City's first daily newspaper.

"Over the last few years I've started writing a number of stories that, for various reasons, I never finished writing..." So begins Special Problems, the comic tale of Christie Hodges, a writer who can't seem to finish a story. The problem isn't that Hodges has nothing to write about - there's her recent divorce, her paralyzed foot, trouble with her daughter and job - it's that once she starts writing, she can't stop. One problem leads to another, and another.

Explore the life and career of writer and poet Jerry Pinkney, author of Soapstone Signs.

Explore the life and career of Caldecott Honor and Coretta Scott King-awarded author and illustrator Kadir Nelson.