Laura Pedersen
Laura Pedersen was born in Buffalo, New York (one of "God's frozen people") in 1965, at the height of The Folk Music Scare. (For details of misspent youth see essay at 'Is there a Nurse in the Church?'). After finishing high school in 1983 she moved to Manhattan and began working on The American Stock Exchange, a time when showing up combined with basic computation skills could be parlayed into a career. She chronicled these years in her first book, Play Money.
Having vowed to become anything but a journalist and with no conception of what a semicolon does, Laura spent the better part of the 1990s writing for The New York Times.
In 1994 President Clinton honored her as one of Ten Outstanding Young Americans. She has appeared on TV shows inclu
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William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare was an English playwright, poet, and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon" (or simply "the Bard"). His extant works, including collaborations, consist of some 39 plays, 154 sonnets, three long narrative poems, and a few other verses, some of uncertain authorship. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright. Shakespeare remains arguably the most influential writer in the English language, and his works continue to be studied and reinterpreted.
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Shakespeare was born and raised in Stratford-upon-Avon, W -
John Scalzi
John Scalzi, having declared his absolute boredom with biographies, disappeared in a puff of glitter and lilac scent.
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(If you want to contact John, using the mail function here is a really bad way to do it. Go to his site and use the contact information you find there.) -
David Baldacci
David Baldacci has been writing since childhood, when his mother gave him a lined notebook in which to write down his stories. (Much later, when David thanked her for being the spark that ignited his writing career, she revealed that she’d given him the notebook to keep him quiet, "because every mom needs a break now and then.”)
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David published his first novel, Absolute Power, in 1996; the feature film adaptation followed, with Clint Eastwood as its director and star. In total, David has published 52 novels for adults; all have been national and international bestsellers, and several have been adapted for film and television. David has also published seven novels for younger readers. His books are published in over 45 languages and in more -
Colson Whitehead
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COLSON WHITEHEAD is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of eleven works of fiction and nonfiction, and is a two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize, for The Nickel Boys and The Underground Railroad, which also won the National Book Award. A recipient of MacArthur and Guggenheim fellowships, he lives in New York City.
Harlem Shuffle is the first book in The Harlem Trilogy. The second, Crook Manifesto, will be published in 2023. -
Richard Powers
Richard Powers has published thirteen novels. He is a MacArthur Fellow and received the National Book Award. His book The Overstory won the Pulitzer Prize in Fiction. He lives in the Great Smoky Mountains.
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Librarian note: There is more than one author with this name in the Goodreads database. -
Luis Alberto Urrea
Luis Alberto Urrea is the award-winning author of 13 books, including The Hummingbird's Daughter, The Devil's Highway and Into the Beautiful North (May 2009). Born in Tijuana to a Mexican father and American mother, Luis has used the theme of borders, immigration and search for love and belonging throughout his work. A Pulitzer Prize finalist in 2005 (nonfiction), he's won the Kiriyama Prize (2006), the Lannan Award (2002), an American Book Award (1999) and was named to the Latino Literary Hall of Fame. He is a creative writing professor at the University of Illinois-Chicago and lives with his family in the 'burbs (dreaming of returning West soon!).
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Kristin Hannah
Kristin Hannah is the award-winning and bestselling author of more than 20 novels including the international blockbuster, The Nightingale, which was named Goodreads Best Historical fiction novel for 2015 and won the coveted People's Choice award for best fiction in the same year. It was named a Best Book of the Year by Amazon, iTunes, Buzzfeed, the Wall Street Journal, Paste, and The Week. In 2018,
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The Great Alone became an instant New York Times #1 bestseller and was named the Best Historical Novel of the Year by Goodreads.
The Four Winds was published in February of 2021 and immediately hit #1 on the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and Indie bookstore's bestseller lists. Additionally, it was selected as a book club pick by -
Bruce D. Perry
Bruce D. Perry is an American psychiatrist, currently the senior fellow of the Child Trauma Academy in Houston, Texas and an adjunct professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago, Illinois.
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Diane Chamberlain
Diane Chamberlain is the New York Times, USA Today and (London) Sunday Times best-selling author of 28 novels. The daughter of a school principal who supplied her with a new book almost daily, Diane quickly learned the emotional power of story. Although she wrote many small “books” as a child, she didn’t seriously turn to writing fiction until her early thirties when she was waiting for a delayed doctor’s appointment with nothing more than a pad, a pen, and an idea. She was instantly hooked.
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Diane was born and raised in Plainfield, New Jersey and lived for many years in both San Diego and northern Virginia. She received her master’s degree in clinical social work from San Diego State University. Prior to her writing career, she was a hospit -
Elizabeth Strout
Elizabeth Strout is the author of several novels, including: Abide with Me, a national bestseller and BookSense pick, and Amy and Isabelle, which won the Los Angeles Times Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction and the Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize, and was a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award and the Orange Prize in England. In 2009 she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for her book Olive Kitteridge. Her short stories have been published in a number of magazines, including The New Yorker. She teaches at the Master of Fine Arts program at Queens University of Charlotte.
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Peter Heller
There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
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Peter Heller holds an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop in both fiction and poetry. An award-winning adventure writer and longtime contributor to NPR, Heller is a contributing editor at Outside magazine, Men’s Journal, and National Geographic Adventure, and a regular contributor to Bloomberg Businessweek. He is also the author of several nonfiction books, including Kook, The Whale Warriors, and Hell or High Water: Surviving Tibet’s Tsangpo River. He lives in Denver, Colorado. -
Tana French
Tana French is the New York Times bestselling author of In the Woods, The Likeness, Faithful Place, Broken Harbor, The Secret Place, The Trespasser and The Witch Elm. Her books have won awards including the Edgar, Anthony, Macavity and Barry Awards, the Los Angeles Times Award for Best Mystery/Thriller, and the Irish Book Award for Crime Fiction. She lives in Dublin with her family.
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Katherine Center
https://katherinecenter.com/about/
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https://www.instagram.com/katherinece...
BookPage calls Katherine Center “the reigning queen of comfort reads.” She’s the New York Times bestselling author of eleven novels, including The Bodyguard, Hello Stranger, Things You Save in a Fire, and her summer 2024 book, The Rom-Commers. Katherine writes laugh-and-cry books: bittersweet romantic comedies about how life knocks us down—and how we get back up. She’s been compared to both Jane Austen and Nora Ephron, and the Dallas Morning News calls her stories, “satisfying in the most soul-nourishing way.” The Netflix movie adaptation of her novel Happiness for Beginners—starring Ellie Kemper and Luke Grimes—just hit the Global Top Ten in 81 countries, and the mov -
Lauren Groff
Lauren Groff was born in Cooperstown, N.Y. and grew up one block from the Baseball Hall of Fame. She graduated from Amherst College and has an MFA in fiction from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
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Her short stories have appeared or are forthcoming in a number of journals, including The Atlantic Monthly, Ploughshares, Glimmer Train, Hobart, and Five Points as well as in the anthologies Best American Short Stories 2007, Pushcart Prize XXXII, and Best New American Voices 2008.
She was awarded the Axton Fellowship in Fiction at the University of Louisville, and has had residencies and fellowships at Yaddo and the Vermont Studio Center.
She lives in Gainesville, Florida, with her husband, Clay, and her dog, Cooper. -
C.S. Lewis
Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
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Clive Staples Lewis was one of the intellectual giants of the twentieth century and arguably one of the most influential writers of his day. He was a Fellow and Tutor in English Literature at Oxford University until 1954. He was unanimously elected to the Chair of Medieval and Renaissance Literature at Cambridge University, a position he held until his retirement. He wrote more than thirty books, allowing him to reach a vast audience, and his works continue to attract thousands of new readers every year. His most distinguished and popular accomplishments include Mere Christianity, Out of the Silent Planet, The Great Divorce, The Screwtape Letters, and the -
Jessica Anya Blau
Jessica Anya Blau is the author of the nationally bestselling novel The Summer of Naked Swim Parties and the critically acclaimed Drinking Closer to Home.
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Seth Rogen
Seth Rogen is an actor, writer, producer, director, entrepreneur, and philanthropist who, alongside longtime collaborators Evan Goldberg and James Weaver, produces film and television projects through their production company, Point Grey Pictures. Rogen can next be seen in Hulu’s series Pam & Tommy, which has been spearheaded by Point Grey. Currently, Rogen stars in Brandon Trost’s film An American Pickle, in which he plays both lead characters. Rogen and Goldberg also launched Houseplant, a Canada-based cannabis company. In 2012, Rogen and his wife, Lauren Miller-Rogen, founded HFC, a national nonprofit organization which funds research and provides care for families coping with Alzheimer’s.
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Kim Michele Richardson
The NEW YORK TIMES, LOS ANGELES TIMES and USA TODAY bestselling author, Kim Michele Richardson is a multiple-award winning author and has written five works of historical fiction, and a bestselling memoir.
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Her critically acclaimed novel, The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek is a DOLLY PARTON RECOMMENDED READ, a Goodreads Choice award nominee, and has earned the 2020 PBS Readers Choice, 2019 LibraryReads Best Book, Indie Next, SIBA, Forbes Best Historical Novel, Book-A-Million Best Fiction, and is an Oprah's Buzziest Books pick and a Women’s National Book Association Great Group Reads selection. It was inspired by the remarkable "blue people" of Kentucky, and the fierce, brave Packhorse Librarians who used the power of literacy to overcome big -
Mimi Alford
Marion "Mimi" Alford (born May 7, 1943) is an American woman who wrote a book first published in 2011 about her affair 50 years earlier with the United States President John F. Kennedy when she was a 19 year-old intern working in the White House. Her book is titled Once Upon a Secret: My Affair with President John F. Kennedy and Its Aftermath.
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Eowyn Ivey
Eowyn Ivey is the author of The Snow Child, To the Bright Edge of the World and Black Woods Blue Sky. She lives in Alaska with her family.
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Kathleen Hale
Kathleen Hale was born in Wisconsin and graduated from Harvard in 2010. She is the author of two novels, NO ONE ELSE CAN HAVE YOU and NOTHING BAD IS GOING TO HAPPEN (the latter is forthcoming from HarperTeen in 2015). She also writes pieces for places like Vice.com. One of her personal essays, "Quit Everything," will appear in the collection NEVER CAN SAY GOODBYE, forthcoming from Simon and Schuster this fall.
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Sarina Bowen

Sarina Bowen is the 24-time USA Today bestselling and Wall Street Journal bestselling author of contemporary fiction, including: The Five Year Lie, the True North series, and the Brooklyn Hockey series. She's the co-author of Him/Us and the WAGs series with Elle Kennedy. And more!
You can find a complete reading order list of Sarina's books on her website. Or see what's coming next from Sarina, and sign up for her newsletter so you don't miss a new book or a deal. Buy books on Amazon -
Kathleen Glasgow
Kathleen Glasgow is the New York Times, USA Today, and international bestselling author of Girl in Pieces, The Glass Girl, You'd Be Home Now, How to Make Friends With the Dark, and The Agathas series (with Liz Lawson). Visit her on TikTok (@kathleenglasgow), Instagram (misskathleenglasgow) or her website (www.kathleenglasgowbooks.com).
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Marie Benedict
Marie Benedict is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of The Queens of Crime, The Mitford Affair, Her Hidden Genius, The Mystery of Mrs. Christie, The Only Woman in the Room, Lady Clementine, Carnegie's Maid, The Other Einstein, and the novella, Agent 355. With Victoria Christopher Murray, she co-wrote the Good Morning America Book Club pick The Personal Librarian and the Target Book of the Year The First Ladies. With Courtney Sheinmel, she co-wrote the first in a middle grade historical adventure series, called The Secrets of the Lovelace Academy.
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Her books have been translated into thirty languages, and selected for the Barnes & Noble Book Club, Target Book Club, Costco Book Club, Indie Next List, and LibraryReads List.
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Cait Flanders
Cait Flanders is the author of Wall Street Journal bestseller, THE YEAR OF LESS. Described by Vogue as “a fascinating look into a living experiment that we can all learn from,” it has been translated into 11 languages, and sold 300,000+ copies worldwide.
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Her second book, ADVENTURES IN OPTING OUT, is a field guide to opting out of expectations, changing paths, and leading a more intentional life. Powell's Books says it, "offers a sturdy and flexible framework to navigate whatever path you are currently on."
Cait's story has been shared in The New York Times, The Guardian, The Globe and Mail, BBC Radio, CBC Radio, Oprah.com, Treehugger, Forbes, and more. Originally from the west coast of Canada, she now lives in the UK countryside. -
Tommy Orange
Tommy Orange is a recent graduate from the MFA program at the Institute of American Indian Arts. He is a 2014 MacDowell Fellow, and a 2016 Writing by Writers Fellow. He is an enrolled member of the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes of Oklahoma. He was born and raised in Oakland, California, and currently lives in Angels Camp, California.
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Ali Wong
Ali Wong is the writer and star of the two hit stand up specials: "Baby Cobra" and "Hard Knock Wife." Since 2016, her looks from the specials have become a popular Halloween costume. She has sold out a record-setting number of shows on her Milk and Money Tour. She also co-wrote, starred in and produced the romantic comedy Always Be My Maybe, and is the author of the NYT bestseller Dear Girls. She currently voices the role of “Bertie” on Tuca and Bertie, which has moved from Netflix to Adult Swim for season 2. It was also recently announced that she would be starring in and producing the dramedy BEEF with Steven Yeun, Lee Sung Jin and A24.
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