Birthdays: Moliere (1622?), Ernest Gaines (1933), Robert Silverberg (1935), Frank Conroy (1936), Jenny Nimmo (1944)

Quote: “History could be as arbitrary as poetry, he told himself: what is history, other than a matter of choice, the picking and choosing of certain facts out of a multitude to elicit a meaningful pattern, which was not necessarily the true one? The act of selecting facts, by definition, inherently involved discarding facts as well, often the ones most inconvenient to the pattern that the historian was trying to reveal. Truth thus became an abstract concept: three different historians, working with the same set of data, might easily come up with three different “truths.” Whereas myth digs deep into the fundamental reality of the spirit, into that infinite well that is the shared consciousness of the entire race, reaching the levels where truth is not an optional matter, but the inescapable foundation of all else. In that sense myth could be truer than history.” – Robert Silverberg

Moliere was a French playwright and considered to be a master of comedy.

Ernest J. Gaines is most famous for his books “The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman”, A Gathering of Old Men”, and “A Lesson Before Dying”.

Robert Silverberg is a multiple winner of the Hugo and Nebula Awards for his science fiction works.

Birthdays: Hendrik Van Loon (1882), Hugh Lofting (1886), John dos Passos (1896), Emily Hahn (1905), Tillie Olsen (1913), Dudley Randall (1914), John Killens (1916), Kenneth Bulmer (1921), Yukio Mishima (1925), Thomas Tryon (1926), Taylor Branch (1947), Eric Maisel (1947), John Lescroart (1948), Mary Robison (1949), Arthur Cover (1950), Maureen Dowd (1952), Anchee Min (1957), David Beren (1957).
Quote: “I make no claim to be an authority on writing or illustrating for children. The fact that I have been successful merely means that I can write and illustrate in my own way.” – Hugh Lofting (creator of Doctor Dolittle)
Hendrik Van Loon won the first Newbery Award in 1922 for his children’s book “The Story of Mankind”
John Dos Passos is best known for his USA Trilogy
Taylor Branch won the Pulitzer Prize for History for “Parting the Waters: Martin Luther King and the Civil Rights Movement 1954-63”
A lot of new-to-me authors in this batch today. I’ve heard of Lofting and Dos Passos, but not many of the others. I find it interesting, though, looking at “famous” authors and learning about them.

Birthdays: A.B. Guthrie Jr. (1901), Carolyn Heilbrun (aka Amanda Cross) (1926), Michael Bond (1926), Flora Nwapa (1931), Horatio Alger Jr (1932), Ron Goulart (1933), Carolyn See (1934), Edmund White (1940), Frank Peretti (1951), Jay McInerney (1955), Claudia Emerson (1957), Lorrie Moore (1957),

Quote: “The great advantage of having a bear as a central character is that he can combine the innocence of a child with the sophistication of an adult.” – Michael Bond (creator of Paddington Bear)

A.B. Guthrie Jr. won the 1950 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for “The Way West”

Claudia Emerson won the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for “Late Wife”

Oh, sweet Paddington Bear, at the train station, with his blue coat (with the tag), red hat, and suitcase. Such adventures he had.

Up-and-coming mommyblogger and single mom Marisol Herrera Slade returns to her old hometown in western Pennsylvania for her 20th high school reunion in 2005, reluctant and yet compelled to see her high school sweetheart, Russell Asher, who dumped her for the homecoming queen. Russell’s marriage to the golden girl, however, ended in a nasty divorce, and he has been systematically excluded from his sons’ lives. In his Internet wanderings, he’s found feminist blogger named Jerrika Jones, who glorifies single motherhood, essentially putting a stamp of approval on what’s happened to him. His group of single dad advocates have vowed to take this woman down. What Russell doesn’t know, when he thinks to rekindle what he had with Marisol, is that Marisol and Jerrika are one and the same. When his group discovers the truth, will their drive for revenge derail any chance the couple have to reunite? Or will they find they have more in common than they ever expected?

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Alana Lorens has been a published writer for more than forty years, after working as a pizza maker, a floral designer, a journalist, and a family law attorney. Currently a resident of Asheville, NC, the aging hippie loves her time in the smoky blue mountains. She writes romance and suspense as Alana Lorens, and sci-fi, fantasy, and paranormal mystery as Lyndi Alexander. One of her novella’s, “That Girl’s the One I Love” is set in the city of Asheville during the old Bele Chere festival. She lives with her daughter on the autism spectrum, who is the youngest of her seven children, and she is ruled by three crotchety old cats, and six kittens of various ages. She can be found at:

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Birthdays: Charles Perrault (1628), Edmund Burke (1729), Laura Adams Amer (1874), Jack London (1876), Margaret Danner (1915), William Nicholson (1948), Haruki Murakami (1949), Walter Mosley (1952), David Mitchell (1969), Julia Quinn (1970),

Quote: “You can’t wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.” – Jack London

Charles Perrault is noted for being the originator of the fairy tale genre.

Laura Amer won the 1932 Newbery Award winner for “Waterless Mountain”

I read a lot of Jack London when I was in high school. Some of his works are still favorites. But Charles Perrault is the one who gave us tales we’ll remember forever – like Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, Puss in Boots, and more.

Birthdays: Alice Rice (1870), Bernard DeVoto (1897), Alan Paton (1903), Manfred Lee (1905), Helen Howe (1905), Diana Gabaldon (1952), Robert O’Brien (1918), Aldo Leopold (1887), Mary Rodgers (1931), Jill Churchill (1943), Jasper Fforde (1961), Alethea Kontis (1976)

Quote: “If you’re going to have more than one person read your book, they’re going to have totally different opinions and responses. No person – no two people – read the same book.” – Diana Gabaldon

 “Getting a book published is one of the hardest things you’ll ever do and getting a picture book published is darned near impossible. Have a thick skin and prepare yourself for truckloads of rejection and humiliation. But if you’re just masochistic and hard-headed enough to never give up, you’ll make it happen. (Just like anything else in this world.) I wish you the best of luck!” Alethea Kontis, writer of YA books, picture books.

Mary Rodgers, writer of books like “Freaky Friday” is the daughter of Richard Rodgers and she started out writing musicals.

Alan Paton was a South African author and anti-apartheid activist who was famous for his first novel “Cry, the Beloved Country”.

Bernard DeVoto won the 1948 Pulitzer Prize for History for “Across the Wide Missouri”

Manfred Lee wrote under the name “Ellery Queen” and was famous for his mysteries.

Robert O’Brien won the 1972 Newbery Medal for “Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH”

Under Romance:

Lost in the Wind by Calle J. Brookes – a 3 Sparkler Contemporary Romantic Suspense

By Any Other Name by Alana Lorens – a 4 Sparkler Contemporary Romance

Under Nonfiction:

In Focus Runes by Jan Budkowski – a 4 Sparkler How-to for those who are interested in Runes

Enjoy!

Birthdays: Robinson Jeffers (1887), Dumas Malone (1892), Cynthia Freeman (1915), Philip Levine (1928), Stephen Ambrose (1936), Daniel Walker Howe (1937), Jared Carter (1939), George Alec Effinger (1947), Dorianne Laux (1952), Steve Hamilton (1961)

Quote: “If that voice you created that is most alive…isn’t carried throughout the whole poem, then…destroy where it’s not there.” – Philip Levine

Philip Levine won the 1995 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for “The Simple Truth” and was appointed Poet Laureate of the US for 2011-2012.

Dumas Malone won the 1975 Pulitzer Prize for History for his biography of Thomas Jefferson

Daniel Howe won the 2008 Pulitzer for History for “What Hath God Wrought”

Dorianne Laux is a multiple prize winner for poetry

Birthdays: Thomas Warton (1728), Thomas Robertson (1829), Henry Fuller (1857), Karel Capek (1890), Simone de Beauvoir (1908), Judith Krantz (1928), Algis Budrys (1931), Wilbur Smith (1933), Ann Siddons (1936), William Morris Meredith (1919), Stuart Woods (1938), John Dunning (1942), Philippa Gregory (1954), Rigoberta Menchu (1959)

Quote: “Somebody said writing is easy, you just sit down at your typewriter and open a vein. It depends on the book.” – Ann Rivers Siddons

Anne Rivers Siddons was an American novelist who wrote stories set in the southern United States. Two of her best known novels are Peachtree Road, and Heartbreak Hotel, which was made into a film titled Heart of Dixie. She wrote 19 novels that featured feisty characters who defied social expectations to find their way in the world.

Karel Capek was a science fiction writer known for making the word “robot” popular.

Thomas Warton (the younger) was Poet Laureate in 1785.

William Morris Meredith was the US Poet Laureate from 1978-1980

Henry Fuller was perhaps the earliest established American author to explore homosexuality in fiction.

Simone de Beauvoir had significant influence on feminist theory and her book “The Second Sex” was a detailed analysis of women’s oppression.

Birthdays: Wilkie Collins (1824), Storm Jameson (1891), Dennis Wheatley (1897), Charles Tomlinson (1927), Alexandra Ripley (1934), Terry Brooks (1944)Quote:

“I have always held the old-fashioned opinion that the primary object of work of fiction should be to tell a story.” – Wilkie Collins

“I still approach each book with the same basic plan in mind: to put some people under severe stress and see how they hold up.” – Terry Brooks

William Wilkie Collins was an English novelist and playwright known especially for The Woman in White, and for The Moonstone, which has been proposed as the first modern English detective novel.

Dennis Yeats Wheatley was an English writer whose prolific output of thrillers and occult novels made him one of the world’s best-selling authors from the 1930s through the 1960s. His Gregory Sallust series was one of the main inspirations for Ian Fleming’s James Bond stories.

Alexandra Ripley was an American writer best known as the author of Scarlett, written as a sequel to Gone with the Wind. Her first novel was Who’s the Lady in the President’s Bed?. Charleston, her first historical novel, was a bestseller, as were her next books On Leaving Charleston, The Time Returns, and New Orleans Legacy.

I adore Terry Brooks books. Especially his “Shannara” series. Found out though that while I can read them, I can’t handle watching the series. However his “Magic Kingdom for Sale/Sold” is and will always be one of my favorite fantasy books.