Linda Spalding

Total similar authors (28)

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  Donna Milner

  Donna Jonas Milner, who has been referred to as the, 'Oh, so Canadian author,' was born in Victoria British Columbia and grew up in South Vancouver. As a young woman she relocated to a small town in the West Kootenays where she married and started a family. In 1972 she settled in the central interior of British Columbia and has resided there since. It wasn't until after she had raised four children and retired from a 25 year career in Real Estate that she pursued her secret passion for writing. Her creative non-fiction articles have been published in local periodicals, Reader's Digest, and the anthology Brothers, Borders and Babylon.
  
  Her debut novel AFTER RIVER, was picked out of the slush pile at Gregory & Co Agency, and subsequently sold

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  Tracy Chevalier

  Born:
  19 October 1962 in Washington, DC. Youngest of 3 children. Father was a photographer for The Washington Post.
  
  Childhood:
  Nerdy. Spent a lot of time lying on my bed reading. Favorite authors back then: Laura Ingalls Wilder, Madeleine L’Engle, Zilpha Keatley Snyder, Joan Aiken, Susan Cooper, Lloyd Alexander. Book I would have taken to a desert island: Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery.
  
  Education:
  BA in English, Oberlin College, Ohio, 1984. No one was surprised that I went there; I was made for such a progressive, liberal place.
  
  MA in creative writing, University of East Anglia, Norwich, England, 1994. There’s a lot of debate about whether or not you can be taught to write. Why doesn’t anyone ask that of professional singers, painters, d

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  Rebecca Wells

  Rebecca Wells was born and raised in Alexandria, Louisiana. “I grew up,” she says, “in the fertile world of story-telling, filled with flamboyance, flirting, futility, and fear.” Surrounded by Louisiana raconteurs, a large extended family, and Our Lady of Prompt Succor’s Parish, Rebecca’s imagination was stimulated at every turn. Early on, she fell in love with thinking up and acting in plays for her siblings—the beginnings of her career as an actress and writer for the stage. She recalls her early influences as being the land around her, harvest times, craw-fishing in the bayou, practicing piano after school, dancing with her mother and brothers and sister, and the close relationship to her black “mother” who cleaned for the Wells househol

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  Wally Lamb

  Wally Lamb is the author of six New York Times bestselling novels: I’ll Take You There, We Are Water, Wishin’ and Hopin’, The Hour I First Believed, I Know This Much Is True, and She’s Come Undone. His latest novel, The River is Waiting, will be released in May of 2025 through Marysue Rucci Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster.
  Lamb also edited Couldn’t Keep It to Myself and I’ll Fly Away, two volumes of essays from students in his writing workshop at York Correctional Institution, a women’s prison in Connecticut, where he was a volunteer facilitator for twenty years.
  Lamb lives in Connecticut with his wife, Christine, and they have three sons.

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  Michael Crichton

  Michael Crichton (1942-2008) was one of the most successful novelists of his generation, admired for his meticulous scientific research and fast-paced narrative. He graduated summa cum laude and earned his MD from Harvard Medical School in 1969. His first novel, Odds On (1966), was written under the pseudonym John Lange and was followed by seven more Lange novels. He also wrote as Michael Douglas and Jeffery Hudson. His novel A Case of Need won the Edgar Award in 1969. Popular throughout the world, he has sold more than 200 million books. His novels have been translated into thirty-eight languages, and thirteen have been made into films.
  
  Michael Crichton died of lymphoma in 2008. He was 66 years old.

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  Karen Abbott

  This author is also published under Abbott Kahler.
  
  Karen Abbott is the New York Times bestselling author of Sin in the Second City: Madams, Ministers, Playboys, and the Battle for America's Soul, American Rose: A Nation Laid Bare: The Life and Times of Gypsy Rose Lee, Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy: Four Women Undercover in the Civil War, and, most recently, The Ghosts of Eden Park: The Bootleg King, the Women Who Pursued Him, and the Murder That Shocked Jazz- Age America, named an Amazon best book of the month for August 2019. She has written for newyorker.com, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, Smithsonian Magazine, Salon and other publications.

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  Iris Johansen

  Iris Johansen is a New York Times bestselling author. She began her writing after her children left home for college. She first achieved success in the early 1980s writing category romances. In 1991, Johansen began writing suspense historical romance novels, starting with the publication of The Wind Dancer. In 1996 Johansen switched genres, turning to crime fiction, with which she has had great success.
  
  She lives in Georgia and is married. Her son, Roy Johansen, is an Edgar Award-winning screenwriter and novelist. Her daughter, Tamara, serves as her research assistant.
  
  IRIS JOHANSEN is The New York Times bestselling author of Night and Day, Hide Away, Shadow Play, Your Next Breath, The Perfect Witness, Live to See Tomorrow, Silencing Eve, Hu

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  Robert Dugoni

  Robert Dugoni is the critically acclaimed New York Times, and #1 Amazon bestselling author of the Tracy Crosswhite police series set in Seattle, which has sold more than 11 million books worldwide. He is also the author of The Charles Jenkins espionage series, the David Sloane legal thriller series, and The Keera Duggan legal thriller series. He has written several stand-alone novels including the historical novels A Killing on the Hill and Hold Strong, as well as the suspense novel The 7th Canon, and Damage Control. He has written the literary novels, The Extraordinary Life of Sam Hell - one of Newsweek Magazine's Best Books of All-Time and Suspense Magazine’s 2018 Book of the Year, for which Dugoni’s narration won an AudioFile Earphones A

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  Jane Urquhart

  She is the author of seven internationally acclaimed novels entitled, The Whirlpool, Changing Heaven, Away, The Underpainter, The Stone Carvers, A Map of Glass, and Sanctuary Line.
  
  The Whirlpool received the French Prix du Meilleur Livre Étranger (Best Foreign Book Award). Away was winner of the Trillium Book Award and a finalist for the prestigious International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. The Underpainter won the Governor General's Award for English-language fiction and was a finalist for the Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize.
  
  The Stone Carvers was a finalist for the Giller Prize and the Governor General's Award, and was longlisted for the Booker Prize. A Map of Glass was a finalist for a regional Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best Bo

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  Joseph Boyden

  Joseph Boyden is a Canadian novelist and short story writer.
  
  He grew up in Willowdale, North York, Ontario and attended the Jesuit-run Brebeuf College School. Boyden's father Raymond Wilfrid Boyden was a medical officer renowned for his bravery, who was awarded the Distinguished Service Order and was the highest-decorated medical officer of World War II.
  
  Boyden, of Irish, Scottish and Métis heritage, writes about First Nations heritage and culture. Three Day Road, a novel about two Cree soldiers serving in the Canadian military during World War I, is inspired by Ojibwa Francis Pegahmagabow, the legendary First World War sniper. Boyden's second novel, Through Black Spruce follows the story of Will, son of one of the characters in Three Day Roa

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  Kate Grenville

  Kate Grenville is one of Australia's best-known authors. She's published eight books of fiction and four books about the writing process. Her best-known works are the international best-seller The Secret River, The Idea of Perfection, The Lieutenant and Lilian's Story (details about all Kate Grenville's books are elsewhere on this site). Her novels have won many awards both in Australia and the UK, several have been made into major feature films, and all have been translated into European and Asian languages.
  
  

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  Suzette Mayr

  Suzette Mayr is the author of five novels including her most recent, Dr. Edith Vane and the Hares of Crawley Hall. Her fourth novel, Monoceros, won the ReLit Award and the City of Calgary W.O. Mitchell Book Prize, was long-listed for the 2011 Giller Prize, nominated for a Ferro-Grumley Award for LGBT Fiction and the Georges Bugnet Award for Fiction, and included on The Globe and Mail’s 100 Best Books of 2011.
  
  Her first novel, Moon Honey, was shortlisted for the Writers Guild of Alberta Best First Book and Best Novel prizes. The Widows, her second novel, was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Prize for Best Book in the Canadian-Caribbean region.
  
  Mayr is past president of the Writers' Guild of Alberta and teaches creative writing in the English

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  Kate Morton

  KATE MORTON is an award-winning, New York Times and Sunday Times bestselling author. Her seven novels - The House at Riverton, The Forgotten Garden, The Distant Hours, The Secret Keeper, The Lake House, The Clockmaker's Daughter, and Homecoming - are published in over 45 countries, in 38 languages, and have all been number one bestsellers around the world.
  
  Kate Morton was born in South Australia, grew up in the mountains of south-east Queensland, and now lives with her family in London and Australia. She has degrees in dramatic art and English literature, and harboured dreams of joining the Royal Shakespeare Company until she realised that it was words she loved more than performing. Kate still feels a pang of longing each time she goes to

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  Lesley Crewe

  Lesley grew up in Montreal, PQ. After graduating from Concordia University with a degree in English and Education, she and her hubby settled down in Homeville, Cape Breton and raised a family.
  
  From 2000-2005, Lesley was a features writer and columnist (Home Fires) for Cape Bretoner Magazine, and from 2005-2009, a columnist (Lesley's Letters) with the on-line magazine, Cahoots.
  
  In 2005 her first novel, Relative Happiness, was published by Vagrant Press, the fiction imprint of Nimbus Publishing. It was an instant bestseller, and was shortlisted for the Margaret and John Savage First Book Award. She has since written nine other novels.
  
  In 2012, Relative Happiness was optioned for film, and in 2014, Lesley's characters came to life on the big sc

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  Ta-Nehisi Coates

  Ta-Nehisi Coates is the author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Between the World and Me, a finalist for the National Book Award. A MacArthur "Genius Grant" fellow, Coates has received the National Magazine Award, the Hillman Prize for Opinion and Analysis Journalism, and the George Polk Award for his Atlantic cover story "The Case for Reparations." He lives in New York with his wife and son.

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  Giorgio De Maria

  Giorgio De Maria (1924–2009) was an Italian writer, playwright, and musician, best known for his eerie and enigmatic novel The Twenty Days of Turin. Born in Turin, Italy, De Maria initially pursued studies in music before transitioning to writing. His literary career began in the post-war period, a time when Italian literature was grappling with the traumas of fascism and war, and De Maria’s works reflect this dark, introspective tone.
  
  De Maria was associated with the Gruppo 63, an avant-garde literary movement in Italy that sought to challenge conventional narrative forms and experiment with new literary techniques. His early works, including essays and short stories, were published in various Italian literary magazines, establishing him as

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  Betty Smith

  Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name. See this thread for more information.
  
  Betty Smith (AKA Sophina Elisabeth Wehner): Born- December 15, 1896; Died- January 17, 1972
  
  Born in Brooklyn, New York to German immigrants, she grew up poor in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. These experiences served as the framework to her first novel, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1943).
  
  After marrying George H. E. Smith, a fellow Brooklynite, she moved with him to Ann Arbor, Michigan, where he pursued a law degree at the University of Michigan. At this time, she gave birth to two girls and waited until they were in school so she could complete her higher education. Although Smith had not finished high school, the university al

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  Kathleen Grissom

  Born Kathleen Doepker, I was privileged as a child to be raised in Annaheim, Saskatchewan, a hamlet on the plains of Canada. Although we lived in a small, tightly knit Roman Catholic community, I was fortunate to have parents who were open to other religions and cultures. Since television was not a luxury our household could afford, books were the windows that expanded my world.
  
  Soon after Sister Colette, my first grade teacher, introduced me to Dick, Jane, and Sally, I began to read on my own. I was a fanciful child and became so influenced by books that while I was reading Five Little Peppers And How They Grew I ate only cold boiled potatoes (the truth is this lasted only for a day) as I suffered with them through their hardships. After

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  Stephanie Dray

  STEPHANIE DRAY is a New York Times, Wall Street Journal & USA Today bestselling author of historical women’s fiction. Her award-winning work has been translated into eight languages and tops lists for the most anticipated reads of the year. She lives with her husband, cats, and history books.

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  Laila Ibrahim

  My education and experience in multiracial, developmental psychology and attachment theory provide ample fodder for my novels. My passion for early childhood education, child birth and religious education are reflected in my writing.
  
  I was the founder and director of Woolsey Children's School where I had first hand experience loving children that were not my own. There are scenes in Yellow Crocus that were largely influenced interactions I had with children from Woolsey.
  
  As a birth doula I had the privilege of witnessing the intensity and joy of childbirth. You can see that my birth experiences are reflected in my novels.
  
  Spiritual themes that cross over multiple religious traditions come directly from working as the Director of Children and

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  Ann Patchett

  Patchett was born in Los Angeles, California. Her mother is the novelist Jeanne Ray.
  
  She moved to Nashville, Tennessee when she was six, where she continues to live. Patchett said she loves her home in Nashville with her doctor husband and dog. If asked if she could go any place, that place would always be home. "Home is ...the stable window that opens out into the imagination."
  
  Patchett attended high school at St. Bernard Academy, a private, non-parochial Catholic school for girls run by the Sisters of Mercy. Following graduation, she attended Sarah Lawrence College and took fiction writing classes with Allan Gurganus, Russell Banks, and Grace Paley. She later attended the Iowa Writers' Workshop at the University of Iowa and the Fine Arts Wo

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  Flynn Berry

  Flynn Berry is the New York Times bestselling author of Trust Her (out June 2024), Northern Spy, A Double Life, and Under the Harrow. Northern Spy was a Reese’s Book Club Pick and chosen as one of the ten best thrillers of the year by The New York Times and the Washington Post, and Under the Harrow won the Edgar Award for best first novel.
  
  

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  Melissa Payne

  Melissa Payne is the bestselling author of five novels, including The Wild Road Home and A Light in the Forest. After an early career raising money for nonprofit organizations, Melissa began dreaming about becoming a published author and wrote her first novel. Her stories feature small mountain towns with characters searching for redemption, love, and second chances. They have been three-time Colorado Book Award finalists and Colorado Authors League 2020 and 2023 winners for mainstream fiction. Her upcoming novel, In the Beautiful Dark, will be released April 22, 2025. Melissa lives in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains with her husband and three children, a friendly mutt, a very loud cat, and the occasional bear. For more information, vi

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  Amanda Skenandore

  Amanda Skenandore is an award-winning author of historical fiction and a registered nurse. Her books have been translated into multiple languages and garnered accolades from the American Library Association, Reader’s Digest, Silicon Valley Reads, and Apple Books. She is a 2024 Nevada Arts Council’s literary fellow. Amanda lives in Las Vegas with her husband and their pet turtle, Lenore.

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  Michael Bennett

  Michael Bennett (Ngāti Pikiao, Ngāti Whakaue) is an award-winning screenwriter, director, and author whose films have been selections at major festivals, including Cannes, Berlin, Toronto, and New York. His nonfiction book, In Dark Places, which explored an infamous miscarriage of justice, won awards, and his young adult graphic novel, Helen and the Go-Go Ninjas, was a finalist for the 2019 New Zealand Book Awards.
  
  source: Amazon

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  Zakiya Dalila Harris

  Zakiya Dalila Harris spent nearly three years in editorial at Knopf/Doubleday before leaving to write her debut novel The Other Black Girl. Prior to working in publishing, Zakiya received her MFA in creative writing from The New School. Her essays and book reviews have appeared in Cosmopolitan, Guernica, and The Rumpus. She lives in Brooklyn.

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  Erin Litteken

  Erin Litteken is an international bestselling author of historical fiction. Her debut, THE MEMORY KEEPER OF KYIV, has been translated into eighteen languages and was the 2022 winner of the She Reads Best Historical Fiction Award and the 2023 Women's Fiction Writers Association Star Award. With a degree in history and a passion for research, Erin draws inspiration from her family roots, and in particular, her great-grandmother’s stories about life in Ukraine before, after, and during WWII. She lives outside of St. Louis with her husband and two children. For more information about Erin and her books, visit www.erinlitteken.com

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  Anne Michaels

  Anne Michaels (born 15 April 1958) is a Canadian poet and novelist whose work has been translated and published in over 45 countries. Her books have garnered dozens of international awards including the Orange Prize, the Guardian Fiction Prize, the Lannan Award for Fiction and the Commonwealth Poetry Prize for the Americas. She is the recipient of honorary degrees, the Guggenheim Fellowship and many other honours. She has been shortlisted for the Governor General's Award, the Griffin Poetry Prize, twice shortlisted for the Giller Prize and twice long-listed for the International Dublin Literary Award. Michaels won a 2019 Vine Award for Infinite Gradation, her first volume of non-fiction. Michaels was the poet laureate of Toronto, Ontario, C

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