John O'Hara - Biography and Works

John O'Hara (1905-1970) was born on January 31, 1905 in Pottsville, Pennsylvania. He was considered in his day a gifted yet controversial writer of both novels and short stories. He spent time in Pennsylvania in the early part of his childhood until his parents decided to send him off to Niagara Preparatory School in Niagara, New York. He graduated in 1924. When O'Hara's father died, his family went into poverty. For that reason, O'Hara couldn't go to college. He went to work as a reporter for various newspapers in Pennsylvania until 1926.

Tue, Jan 21 2014

Ernest Hemingway - Biography and Works

Ernest Hemingway was born in Oak Park, Illinois. His mother, Grace Hall, whom he never forgave for dressing him as a little girl in his youth, had an operatic career before marrying Dr. Clarence Edmonds Hemingway; he taught his son to love out-door life. Hemingway's father took his own life in 1928 after losing his health to diabetes and his money in the Florida real-estate bubble.

Tue, Jan 21 2014

Gore Vidal - Biography and Works

Gore Vidal (1925-2012) grew accustomed at an early age to a life among political and social notables. He was born at the military academy in West Point, New York, where his father was an instructor. He was raised near Washington, DC, in the house of his grandfather, Thomas P. Gore, a populist Democrat senator from Oklahoma. Vidal learned about political life from him and when he was a teenager, he adopted the first name of Gore. Vidal also spent time on the Virginia estate of his stepfather, Hugh. D. Auchincloss.

Tue, Jan 21 2014

Henrik Ibsen - Biography and Works

Henrik (John) Ibsen (1828-1906) was born in Norway. He was born in a small Norwegian timber port of Skein. His ancestors were sea captains and businessmen while his father was rich merchant, dealing in Lumber. In his writings later on we find the recurrent theme of the sea. Three brothers and a sister were born after him, but Henrik was the only member of his family to show promise.

Sun, Jan 19 2014

Bertolt Brecht - Biography and Works

Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956) was born in the city of Augsburg, Germany. Bercht's father Bertolt Friedrich Brecht was a Catholic worker in a paper factory and his mother, Wilhelmine Friederike Sophie Brezing, was a Protestant, ill with breast cancer. Bertolt went to the University of Munich to study philosophy and medicine.

Sun, Jan 19 2014

August Wilson - Biography and Works

August Wilson (1945-2005) the African-American playwright, is the son of a white father who never lived with his family and a black mother who had come from North Carolina to a Pittsburgh slum, where she worked to keep her family together. He grew up in the Hill district of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. His childhood experiences in this black slum community influenced his dramatic writings.

Sat, Jan 18 2014

Marsha Norman - Biography and Works

Norman was born in September 21, 1947, in Louisville, Kentucky. Her family chose to isolate Norman rather than expose her ideas that challenged their own as religious fundamentalists. She received a B.A. from Agnes Scott College in Georgia in 1969, and an M.A. from the University of Louisville in 1971.

Sat, Jan 18 2014

Athol Fugard - Biography and Works

Athol Fugard (1932) is born in the remote village of Middleburg, Cape Province, and grew up in Port Elizabeth, the setting for most of his plays. His full name is Harold Athol Lanigan Fugard and as a child, he was known as Hally before he decided he wanted to be called Athol.

Sat, Jan 18 2014

Eugene O'Neill - Biography and Works

Eugene O'Neill (1888- 1953) was born in New York into an Irish-Catholic theatrical family. His early life was restless: his father, who was an actor, spent most of his career touring in the lead role of the popular melodrama The Count of Monte Cristo.

Fri, Jan 17 2014

Arthur Miller - Biography and Works

Arthur Miller is a Jewish American dramatist who has occupied a canonical status in the history of modern drama. He was born in 1915 in Harlem, New York city and died of heart failure at home in Roxbury, Connecticut, on February 10, 2005.

Fri, Jan 17 2014