Each month, we highlight relevant author birthdays to celebrate. In the post below, click on the author’s name to find titles by them in our catalog. Read a little bit about each author, then follow the link to learn more about them in our Biography in Context database. To access this database, simply login with your last name and TCCL card number.
Claudia Rankine (born Jan. 1, 1963): "Claudia Rankine is a poet, essayist, editor, and educator. Although she identifies herself foremost as a poet, her work often takes a hybrid form that incorporates poetry, essay, and visual collage. Rankine began publishing her poetry in the 1990s and rose to national prominence with the publication of her fifth volume, Citizen: An American Lyric (2014), a formally inventive and deeply penetrating examination of how racism persists as one of the most corrosive elements of American society in the 21st century. In 2016 Rankine was awarded a MacArthur "Genius" Grant, recognizing individuals of exceptional creativity. In making the award, the MacArthur Foundation described Rankine as describing her as 'a poet illuminating the emotional and psychic tensions that mark the experiences of many living in twenty-first-century America.'" From Gale Contemporary Black Biography. Read the full piece here.
André Aciman (born Jan. 2, 1951): "André Aciman's debut novel Call Me By Your Name provoked a minor literary sensation when it was first published in 2007 and elevated the New York City professor's profile when it was adapted into an Academy Award-nominated film a decade later. The Egyptian-born essayist and specialist on the works of Marcel Proust was gratified by the reception for his work, which Sunday Times journalist Josh Glancy ventured was 'perhaps the most celebrated love story of the 21st century. It captures the torrid thrill of first love with something approaching perfection: the visceral obsession, the terrifying joy, the way it creeps up on you and consumes you. All of us saw some reflection of ourselves.'" From Newsmakers Online. Read the full piece here.
John Hope Franklin (born Jan. 2, 1915): "On September 29, 1995, John Hope Franklin, a scholar of U.S. history, received the nation's highest civilian award, the Presidential Medal of Freedom. According to the program, it is awarded by the President of the United States 'to those persons whom he deems to have made especially meritorious contributions to … the United States, to world peace, or to cultural or other significant public or private endeavors.' In so honoring Franklin, President Bill Clinton spoke of Franklin's outstanding contributions. The citation read in part: “His extraordinary work in the field of American History and his studies of the South have earned John Hope Franklin the respect and admiration of people throughout the world. … Following his maxim to `look history straight in the face and call it like it is,' he has helped to define who we are and where we have been, and he has encouraged each of us to look forward to where we are going.'" From Notable Black American Men, Book II. Read the full piece here.
Seanan McGuire (born Jan. 5, 1978): When asked about issues of gender in the Sci-Fi and Fantasy community, here's what Seanan had to say about improvements in inclusion: "We're getting better about letting everybody come to the party--really, we are--but we keep forgetting, as a community, that nothing is one and done. I've had people tell me that they felt really threatened by the idea of gender equality, like everything would become about quotas and 'political correctness,' and while I sympathize, because it's scary to have the world change, part of me says 'so what?'" From Gale Literature: Contemporary Authors. Read the full piece here.
Tananarive Due (born Jan. 5, 1966): "Journalist and novelist Tananarive Due set her sights on a writing career at an early age. As a sixth grader watching the landmark television miniseries Roots, Due--the daughter of an attorney and a civil-rights activist--traced her own family's history, calling her work My Own Roots. As a young woman, Due attended a summer program for young writers at Northwestern University and won numerous awards for both writing and oratory." From Gale Literature: Contemporary Authors. Read the full piece here.
Ngugi wa Thiong'o (born Jan. 5, 1938): "Novelist, dramatist, essayist, and literary critic Ngugi Wa Thiong'o is perhaps East Africa's most prominent writer. Known to many simply as Ngugi, he has been described by Shatto Arthur Gakwandi in The Novel and Contemporary Experience in Africa as a 'novelist of the people,' for his works show his concern for the inhabitants of his native country, Kenya, who have been oppressed and exploited by colonialism, Christianity, and in recent years, black politicians and businessmen." From Gale Literature: Contemporary Authors. Read the full piece here.
Zora Neale Hurston (born Jan. 7, 1891): "Zora Neale Hurston managed to avoid many of the restraints placed upon women, blacks, and specifically black artists by American society during the first half of the twentieth century. And she did so with a vengeance by becoming the most published black female author in her time and arguably the most important collector of African-American folklore ever. Hurston was a complex artist whose persona ranged from charming and outrageous to fragile and inconsistent, but she always remained a driven and brilliant talent." From American Decades. Read the full piece here.
Diana Gabaldon (born Jan. 11, 1952): "Diana Gabaldon is a former biologist and university professor who has become the best-selling writer of the "Outlander" series of historical fantasy novels. In 2014 the series was adapted as a television series for the Starz network. Gabaldon's writing career began with two unlikely endeavors, considering the eventual direction of her career. While she was an assistant professor at Northern Arizona University in the 1980s, she became an expert in the use of software programs for scientific research. This led to her founding the scholarly journal Science Software, which she ran and edited. While this experience gave her a good deal of writing experience, she credits her freelance work writing comics about Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, and Uncle Scrooge for Walt Disney Productions from 1979 to 1980 for teaching her 'most of what I know about the mechanics of storytelling,' she states on her Web site." From Gale Literature: Contemporary Authors. Read the full piece here.
Jack London (born Jan. 12, 1876): "'The greatest story Jack London ever wrote,' Alfred Kazin observed in On Native Ground, 'was the story he lived.' London's life has at times seemed to fascinate readers more than his art. His life was a rags-to-riches story, but with an ironic ending that makes it a cautionary lesson in the price exacted for pursuing fame and success. While London's life is often used to explain his work, since the 1950s critics have allowed that his works contain a greater depth than was originally realized. The novels The Call of the Wild and White Fang, among others, are now considered classics of American literature." From Major Authors and Illustrators for Children and Young Adults. Read the full piece here.
Haruki Murakami (born Jan. 12, 1949): "The content of his work is not related to that of traditional Japanese literature and his writing style does not follow after the techniques set down by prior modern writers. Some critics claim Murakami's style can read like translation from English. His unusual style, without traditional roots, has made his work controversial among critics and, simultaneously, popular among younger generations. The reason for his break from traditional Japanese realism can be simply stated: it is not effective anymore, at least for him, to use 'realism' to describe Japan or the world in which we live now. The world is changing rapidly and Japan is not what it used to be. In the 70's and 80's, both underwent drastic changes, especially in the field of technology." From St. James Guide to Science Fiction Writers. Read the full piece here.
Yukio Mishima (born Jan. 14, 1925): "Life magazine once called Yukio Mishima "the Japanese Hemingway," while Japan's first Nobel laureate, Yasunari Kawabata, "declared that a `writer of his caliber appears only once every 200 or 300 years,'" as reported in the Economist. Mishima was a writer, poet, playwright, librettist, actor, bodybuilder, and right-wing political activist renowned for his flamboyant personality, eccentric political beliefs, and spectacular ritual suicide in 1970." From Authors and Artists for Young Adults. Read the full piece here.
Ernest J. Gaines (born Jan. 15, 1933): "The fiction of Ernest J. Gaines, including his 1971 novel The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman and his 1993 novel A Lesson before Dying, is deeply rooted in the African-American culture and storytelling traditions of rural Louisiana where the author was born and raised. His stories have been noted for their convincing characters and powerful themes presented within authentic, often folk-like, narratives that tap into the complex world of the rural South. Gaines depicts the strength and dignity of his black characters in the face of numerous struggles: the dehumanizing and destructive effects of racism; the breakdown in personal relationships as a result of social pressures; and the choice between secured traditions and the sometimes radical measures necessary to bring about social change." From Gale Literature: Contemporary Authors. Read the full piece here.
A.A. Milne (born Jan. 18, 1882): "A.A. Milne (1882-1956) worked as an essayist, a playwright, a poet, and an adult novelist, in addition to his important contribution as an author of juvenile books. Although he attempted to excel in all literary genres, he was master of Christopher Robin and Winnie-the-Pooh. His nature defied labels, such as "writer of children's literature," even though that was where he excelled. Modern-day readers might be surprised to learn that A.A. Milne did more than just write children's books. ... Milne jumped from one creative venture to another, reluctant to concentrate his attention in one field for any extended period of time." From Encyclopedia of World Biography Online. Read the full piece here.
Tommy Orange (born Jan. 19, 1982): "Tommy Orange is a writer of Cheyenne and Arapaho heritage. He holds a master's degree from the Institute of American Indian Arts, in Santa Fe, New Mexico. In 2018, Orange released his first novel, There There. The book begins with a prologue in which Orange offers details on the Native experience and history. It goes on to introduce its ensemble cast of Native and mixed-race characters living in Oakland, Califonria, as the city prepares for its first Powwow." From Gale Literature: Contemporary Authors. Read the full piece here.
Gloria Naylor (born Jan. 25, 1950): "Gloria Naylor has written several original and absorbing novels, among them The Women of Brewster Place: A Novel in Seven Stories (which won the American Book award for best first writing in 1983), Linden Hills, and Mama Day. Naylor's success lies, in part, in the intensity of her presentation of such social issues as poverty, racism, discrimination against homosexuals, the unequal treatment of women, the value of a sense of community among blacks, and the failure of some upper middle-class educated blacks to address racial problems and social injustice." From Contemporary Novelists. Read the full piece here.
Virginia Woolf (born Jan. 25, 1882): "Dissatisfied with the novel based on familiar, factual, and external details, Virginia Woolf followed experimental clues to a more internal, subjective, and in a sense more personal rendering of experience than had been provided by Henry James, Marcel Proust, and James Joyce. In the works of these masters the reality of time and experience had formed the stream of consciousness, a concept that probably originated with William James. Virginia Woolf lived in and responded to a world in which certitudes were collapsing under the stresses of changing knowledge, the civilized savagery of war, and new manners and morals. She drew on her personal, sensitive, poetic awareness without rejecting altogether the heritage of literary culture she derived from her family." From .Encyclopedia of World Biography Online. Read the full piece here.
Lewis Carroll (born Jan. 27, 1832): "Charles L. Dodgson was an author, mathematician, teacher, and photographer who is described by Roger Lancelyn Green in Twentieth-Century Children's Writers as "probably the most quoted author in the English language after the Bible and Shakespeare." However, it is under the pen name Lewis Carroll that Dodgeson is recognized around the world. He was a master of "nonsense" verse, fairy tales, and mathematical puzzles. His Alice in Wonderland has been translated into numerous languages worldwide, and is still popular with the media." From Major Authors and Illustrators for Children and Young Adults. Read the full piece here.
Susan Choi (born Jan. 28, 1969): "Susan Choi was a 2004 Pulitzer Prize finalist for her work American Woman: A Novel. Her first novel, The Foreign Student: A Novel, won the Asian-American Literary Award for Fiction and is set in the 1950s in Sewanee, Tennessee, at the University of the South. Chang Ahn, a former translator for the U.S. Information Service in Korea, is tortured and accused of spying. His professor father is imprisoned, and Chang's best friend, a Communist, simply disappears." From Gale Literature: Contemporary Authors. Read the full piece here.
Claudia Rankine (born Jan. 1, 1963): "Claudia Rankine is a poet, essayist, editor, and educator. Although she identifies herself foremost as a poet, her work often takes a hybrid form that incorporates poetry, essay, and visual collage. Rankine began publishing her poetry in the 1990s and rose to national prominence with the publication of her fifth volume, Citizen: An American Lyric (2014), a formally inventive and deeply penetrating examination of how racism persists as one of the most corrosive elements of American society in the 21st century. In 2016 Rankine was awarded a MacArthur "Genius" Grant, recognizing individuals of exceptional creativity. In making the award, the MacArthur Foundation described Rankine as describing her as 'a poet illuminating the emotional and psychic tensions that mark the experiences of many living in twenty-first-century America.'" From Gale Contemporary Black Biography. Read the full piece here. 
ohn Hope Franklin (born Jan. 2, 1915): "On September 29, 1995, John Hope Franklin, a scholar of U.S. history, received the nation's highest civilian award, the Presidential Medal of Freedom. According to the program, it is awarded by the President of the United States 'to those persons whom he deems to have made especially meritorious contributions to … the United States, to world peace, or to cultural or other significant public or private endeavors.' In so honoring Franklin, President Bill Clinton spoke of Franklin's outstanding contributions. The citation read in part: “His extraordinary work in the field of American History and his studies of the South have earned John Hope Franklin the respect and admiration of people throughout the world. … Following his maxim to `look history straight in the face and call it like it is,' he has helped to define who we are and where we have been, and he has encouraged each of us to look forward to where we are going.'" From Notable Black American Men, Book II. Read the full piece here. 
Haruki Murakami (born Jan. 12, 1949): "The content of his work is not related to that of traditional Japanese literature and his writing style does not follow after the techniques set down by prior modern writers. Some critics claim Murakami's style can read like translation from English. His unusual style, without traditional roots, has made his work controversial among critics and, simultaneously, popular among younger generations. The reason for his break from traditional Japanese realism can be simply stated: it is not effective anymore, at least for him, to use 'realism' to describe Japan or the world in which we live now. The world is changing rapidly and Japan is not what it used to be. In the 70's and 80's, both underwent drastic changes, especially in the field of technology." From St. James Guide to Science Fiction Writers. Read the full piece here. 
Ernest J. Gaines (born Jan. 15, 1933): "The fiction of Ernest J. Gaines, including his 1971 novel The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman and his 1993 novel A Lesson before Dying, is deeply rooted in the African-American culture and storytelling traditions of rural Louisiana where the author was born and raised. His stories have been noted for their convincing characters and powerful themes presented within authentic, often folk-like, narratives that tap into the complex world of the rural South. Gaines depicts the strength and dignity of his black characters in the face of numerous struggles: the dehumanizing and destructive effects of racism; the breakdown in personal relationships as a result of social pressures; and the choice between secured traditions and the sometimes radical measures necessary to bring about social change." From Gale Literature: Contemporary Authors. Read the full piece here. 
Gloria Naylor (born Jan. 25, 1950): "Gloria Naylor has written several original and absorbing novels, among them The Women of Brewster Place: A Novel in Seven Stories (which won the American Book award for best first writing in 1983), Linden Hills, and Mama Day. Naylor's success lies, in part, in the intensity of her presentation of such social issues as poverty, racism, discrimination against homosexuals, the unequal treatment of women, the value of a sense of community among blacks, and the failure of some upper middle-class educated blacks to address racial problems and social injustice." From Contemporary Novelists. Read the full piece here. 
Susan Choi (born Jan. 28, 1969): "Susan Choi was a 2004 Pulitzer Prize finalist for her work American Woman: A Novel. Her first novel, The Foreign Student: A Novel, won the Asian-American Literary Award for Fiction and is set in the 1950s in Sewanee, Tennessee, at the University of the South. Chang Ahn, a former translator for the U.S. Information Service in Korea, is tortured and accused of spying. His professor father is imprisoned, and Chang's best friend, a Communist, simply disappears." From Gale Literature: Contemporary Authors. Read the full piece here.