Alastair Heron (1915 - 17 March 2009) was a British psychologist and writer. A member of the Religious Society of Friends, or Quakers, he wrote several books on the movement.
Manly Wade Wellman (May 21, 1903 April 5, 1986) was an American writer. He is best known for his fantasy and horror stories set in the Appalachian Mountains and for drawing on the native folklore of that region, but he wrote in a wide variety of genres including science fiction, fantasy, historical fiction, detective fiction, western fiction, juvenile fiction and non-fiction. In the later 1920s, during the silent film era, Wellman wrote movie reviews for the Wichita Beacon. He also contributed to the writing of the comic book The Spirit while the franchise's creator, Will Eisner, was serving in the US military during World War II. Three of Wellman's most famous reappearing protagonists are Silver John, aka John the Balladeer, the wandering backwoods minstrel with a silver-stringed guitar; the elderly 'occult detective' Judge Pursuivant; and the playboy-adventurer John Thunstone. Wellman was born in Angola. He was of partial Native American ancestry. After graduating from Wichita Municipal University in Kansas, he went on to receive a bachelor of laws degree from Columbia University. Wellman was a long-time resident of North Carolina. He has been the recipient of many awards, including the World Fantasy Award and Edgar Allan Poe Award. Manly Wade Wellman was said to have loved his wife Frances Garfield very much, one friend even commented "Those two are the best advertisement for monogamy in the whole world".
Benjamin Flower (17551829) was an English radical journalist and political writer, a vocal opponent of his country's involvement in the early stages of the Napoleonic Wars.
Sir Adolphus William Ward (2 December 1837 19 June 1924) was an English historian and man of letters. He was born at Hampstead, London, and was educated in Germany and at Peterhouse, Cambridge. In 1866 he was appointed professor of history and English literature in Owens College, Manchester, and was principal from 1890 to 1897, when he retired. In 1898, Ward delivered the Ford Lectures at Oxford University.
Wallace West (May 22, 1900-March 8, 1980) was an American science fiction writer. He began publishing in 1927 with the story "Loup-Garou" in Weird Tales. The majority of West's work, which appeared prior to the 1960s, was short fiction, although he occasionally did turn his hand to writing novels. His novels, mostly published after World War II, were mostly re-workings of his pre-war short fiction.
Donald Bain (born 1935) is a United States author and ghostwriter, having written over 80 books in his 40-year career. A graduate of Purdue University, he is the recipient of many writing awards. Bain is a professional jazz musician as well as a writer. He is married to Rene Paley-Bain, who is also a writer.
Claude Scudamore Jarvis was an British colonial governor, Arabist and naturalist noted for his knowledge of and rapport with the desert Bedouin.
Bernardim Ribeiro was a Portuguese poet and writer. His father, Damio Ribeiro, was implicated in the conspiracy against John II of Portugal. His Livro das saudades mostly known as Menina e moa for its first line is one of the finest examples of the genre of shepherd romance in Renaissance literature.
Forrest J Ackerman (November 24, 1916 - December 4, 2008) was an American collector of science fiction books and movie memorabilia and a science fiction fan. He was, for over seven decades, one of science fiction's staunchest spokesmen and promoters. Ackerman was a Los Angeles, California-based magazine editor, science fiction writer and literary agent, a founder of science fiction fandom and possibly the world's most avid collector of genre books and movie memorabilia. He was the editor and principal writer of the American magazine Famous Monsters of Filmland, as well as an actor and producer. Also called "Forry," "The Ackermonster," "4e" and "4SJ," Ackerman was central to the formation, organization, and spread of science fiction fandom, and a key figure in the wider cultural perception of science fiction as a literary, art and film genre. Famous for his word play and neologism
Geoffrey Chaucer (c. 1343 25 October 1400) was an English author, poet, philosopher, bureaucrat, courtier and diplomat. Although he wrote many works, he is best remembered for his unfinished frame narrative The Canterbury Tales. Sometimes called the father of English literature, Chaucer is credited by some scholars as the first author to demonstrate the artistic legitimacy of the vernacular Middle English, rather than French or Latin.
Edward William Thomson (February 12, 1849 1924) was a Canadian journalist and writer. He was born in Peel County, Ontario, the grandson of Edward William Thomson, a member of the York militia who was a member of the Legislative Assembly of Upper Canada. Thomson served with the Union Army cavalry during the American Civil War. He worked as a land surveyor and later took up journalism, becoming editorial writer for The Toronto Globe. He wrote a book of short stories, Old Man Savarin and Other Stories (1895), and The Many-Mansioned House and Other Poems (1909).
Stephen Marlowe (born Milton Lesser, 7 August 1928 in Brooklyn, NY, died 22 February 2008, in Williamsburg, Virginia) was an American author of science fiction, mystery novels, and fictional autobiographies of Christopher Columbus, Spanish author Miguel de Cervantes, and Edgar Allan Poe. He is best known for his detective character Chester Drum, whom he created in the 1955 novel The Second Longest Night. Lesser also wrote under the pseudonyms Adam Chase, Andrew Frazer, C.H.
W. Keith Leask (18571925) was a writer and classics lecturer at the University of Aberdeen. He wrote several biographies and works in classics, and was born in the parish of Old Machar in Old Aberdeen on 16 April 1857. He was the son of James Leask who attended King's College, Aberdeen 1844-46 and was an advocate in Aberdeen. His mother was Mary Ann Allan. Leask attended Aberdeen Grammar School and graduated M.A. at the University of Aberdeen in 1877. He then studied at the University of Oxford and graduated first class Class. Mods. at Oxford in 1879 and second class Litt. Hum. in 1881. He was employed by the University of Aberdeen as assistant to W D Geddes, Professor of Greek from 1882 to 1887. He returned to Oxford from 1889 to 1894 but was never offered any permanent post. Blair, in his Obituary of Leask, suggests that he should have gone to London and devoted himself to journalism. But Leask returned to Aberdeen and earned his living by writing books and articles for newspapers such as the Glasgow Herald. He died of heart disease at his lodgings at 82 Union Grove, Aberdeen on 2 May 1925 and was unmarried.
Wilhelmine von Hillern (11 March 1836 Munich - 15 December 1916 Hohenaschau) was a German actress and novelist.
Archie Frederick Collins (born South Bend, Indiana January 8, 1869. Died Nyack, New York January 3, 1952) was an early experimenter in wireless telephony and a prolific author of books and articles on a wide range of scientific and technical subjects.
John Martin Leahy (1886 - 1967) was an American short story writer, novelist and artist. He wrote and illustrated weird stories that appeared in pulp magazines such as Weird Tales and Science and Invention. His novel, Drome was published by Fantasy Publishing Company, Inc. during 1952.
Adrienne Kennedy is an African-American playwright and was a key figure in the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s and 1970s. She is best known for her first major play Funnyhouse of a Negro. Many of Kennedy's plays explore issues of race, kinship, and violence in American society, and many of her works are "autobiographically inspired.
Ammonius of Alexandria was a Christian philosopher who lived in the 3rd century. He is not to be confused with Ammonius Saccas, the Neoplatonist philosopher, also from Alexandria. Eusebius, who is followed by Jerome, asserted that Ammonius was born a Christian, and remained faithful to Christianity throughout his life. He wrote that Ammonius produced several scholarly works, most notably The Harmony of Moses and Jesus. Eusebius also wrote that Ammonius composed a synopsis of the four canonical gospels, traditionally assumed to be the Ammonian Sections, now known as the Eusebian Canons. Eusebius attacks Porphyry for saying that Ammonius apostatized early in his life and left no writings behind him, but Eusebius was presumably confusing Ammonius with the Neoplatonist of the same name.
William Francis Nolan (born March 6, 1928) is an American author, who is best known for writing stories in the science fiction, fantasy and horror genres. He is best known for coauthoring the novel Logan's Run, with George Clayton Johnson. He co-wrote the screenplay for the 1976 horror film Burnt Offerings which starred Karen Black and Bette Davis. Nolan was born in Kansas City, Missouri. He attended the Kansas City Art Institute. He worked for Hallmark Cards, Inc. before becoming an author. Among his many awards, he was voted a Living Legend in Dark Fantasy by the International Horror Guild in 2002. He is twice winner of the Edgar Allan Poe Award from the Mystery Writers of America. During 2006, he was bestowed the honorary title of Author Emeritus by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, Inc. In 2010, he received the Lifetime Achievement Stoker award from the Horror Writers Association (HWA). Nolan has teamed up with Bluewater Productions for a new comic book, "Logan's Run: LastDay", to be released in 2010. In addition, he will be developing comics based on "Dark Universe" and "Sam Space". He has also co-edited an anthology with Jason V Brock, "The Bleeding Edge" (2009) with stories from fellow writers, Ray Bradbury, Richard Matheson, George Clayton Johnson, John Shirley, Dan O'Bannon, and several newer writers.
Albert Arnold "Al" Gore, Jr. (born March 31, 1948) served as the 45th Vice President of the United States from 1993 to 2001 under President Bill Clinton. He was the Democratic Party nominee for President in the 2000 U.S. presidential election. Gore is currently an author, businessperson, and environmental activist. He was previously an elected official for 24 years, representing Tennessee in the U.S. House of Representatives (197785), and later in the U.S. Senate (198593), and finally becoming Vice President in 1993. In the 2000 presidential election, Gore won the popular vote by more than 500,000 votes. However, he ultimately lost the Electoral College, and the election, to Republican George W. Bush when the U.S. Supreme Court settled the legal controversy over the Florida vote recount by ruling 5-4 in favor of Bush. It was the only time in history that the Supreme Court may have determined the outcome of a presidential election. He is a founder and current chair of the Alliance for Climate Protection, the co-founder and chair of Generation Investment Management, the co-founder and chair of Current TV, a member of the Board of Directors of Apple Inc., and a senior adviser to Google. Gore is also a partner in the venture capital firm, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, heading that firm's climate change solutions group. He has served as a visiting professor at Middle Tennessee State University, Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, Fisk University, and the University of California, Los Angeles. Gore has received a number of awards including the Nobel Peace Prize (joint award with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) (2007), a Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album (2009) for his book An Inconvenient Truth, a Primetime Emmy Award for Current TV (2007), and a Webby Award (2005). Gore was also the subject of the Academy Award-winning (2007) documentary An Inconvenient Truth in 2006. In 2007 he was named a runner-up for Time's 2007 Person of the Year.
Amelia Ellis (born September 23, 1977 in Hamburg, Germany) is a British-German novelist and photographer best known for her mystery series featuring London private investigator Nea Fox. Her themes include guilt and redemption, integrity, courage and sacrifice, but also friendship, love and various aspects of lesbian relationships. Urban loneliness is another major subject of her books. Ellis' protagonist is a pensive but tough post-feminist woman in her early thirties searching for answers to life's persistent questions, often finding them in the course of her investigations. Her novels contain elements of hardboiled fiction, cozies and classic detective stories and cannot easily be assigned to a specific genre of mysteries. As a photographer, Ellis works primarily in the field of street photography. She is best known for her black and white pictures of London. Ellis is taking part in the London-based art project Camden17.
Anna Maria Hall (6 January 1800 - 30 January 1881) was an Irish novelist who often published as "Mrs. S.C. Hall". She was born Anna Maria Fielding in Dublin, but left Ireland at the age of 15. Nevertheless, her home country was the theme for several of her most successful books, such as Sketches of Irish Character (1829), Lights and Shadows of Irish Character (1838), Marian (1839), and The Whiteboy (1845).
Quintus Horatius Flaccus (Venusia, December 8, 65 BC Rome, November 27, 8 BC), known in the English-speaking world as Horace, was the leading Roman lyric poet during the time of Augustus.
Anne Hollingsworth Wharton (December 15, 1845 July 29, 1928) was an American writer and historian. Born at Southampton Furnace, Pennsylvania, daughter of Charles Wharton and Mary McLanahan Boggs she was educated at a private school in Philadelphia. She devoted herself chiefly to the study of the social history of the Colonial and Revolutionary periods of the United States, wrote a number of entertaining books and magazine articles in this field, and was chosen historian of the The National Society of the Colonial Dames of America.
Angela Davis (b. January 26, 1944 in Birmingham, Alabama) is an American socialist, philosopher, political activist and retired professor with the History of Consciousness Department at the University of California, Santa Cruz. She was the director of the university's Feminist Studies department. Davis was largely active during the Civil Rights Movement and was associated with the Black Panthers. Her research interests are in feminism, African American studies, critical theory, Marxism, popular music and social consciousness, and the philosophy and history of punishment and prisons. She wrote about the FBI's targeting of the Black Panther Party as part of its Counter Intelligence Program. Also, she was tried and acquitted of suspected involvement in the Soledad brothers' August 1970 abduction and murder of Judge Harold Haley in Marin County, California. She was twice a candidate for Vice President on the Communist Party USA ticket during the Reagan era. Since moving in the early 1990s from party communism to other forms of political commitment, she has identified herself as a democratic socialist. Davis is the founder of "Critical Resistance", an organization working to abolish the prison-industrial complex.
Whitelaw Reid (July 26, 1913 - April 18, 2009) was an American journalist who later served as editor, president and chairman of the family-owned New York Herald Tribune. An avid sportsman throughout his life, he won a national singles title in his age group at age 85 and a national doubles title at age 90, both in tennis.
Dame Mary Anne Salmond, DBE, FRSNZ, FBA (born 1945) is a New Zealand historian, anthropologist and writer.
Dallas Lore Sharp (1870-1929) was an American author and university professor, born at Haleyville, Cumberland Co., N. J. He graduated at Brown University in 1895, served as a Methodist Episcopal minister for four years, and graduated at the Boston University School of Theology in 1899. He married Grace Hastings and the couple had four sons, including Waitstill Sharp. He was assistant librarian (1899-1902), assistant professor of English (1902-09), and thereafter professor at Boston University.
Marguerite Poland is a South African novelist. When she was two years old, the Poland family relocated to the Eastern Cape where she spent most of her formative years. After completing her secondary education at St Dominics Priory School in Port Elizabeth, Poland completed her Bachelor of Arts degree at Rhodes University, majoring in Social Anthropology and Xhosa. In 1971, Marguerite Poland completed her honours degree in African languages at Stellenbosch University.
Aleksis Kivi, born Alexis Stenvall, (10 October 1834 31 December 1872) was a Finnish author who wrote the first significant novel in the Finnish language, Seven Brothers. Although Kivi was among the very earliest authors of prose and lyrics in Finnish language, he is still considered one of the greatest of them all. Aleksis Kivi was born at Nurmijrvi, Finland, to a tailor's family. In 1846 he left for school in Helsinki, and in 1859 he was accepted to the University of Helsinki, where he studied literature and developed an interest in the theater. His first play was Kullervo, based on a tragic tale from Kalevala. He also met the famous journalist and statesman Johan Vilhelm Snellman. From 1863 onwards, Kivi devoted his time to writing. He wrote 12 plays and a collection of poetry. The novel Seven Brothers took him ten years to write. Literary critics, especially the prominent August Ahlqvist, disapproved of the book, at least nominally because of its "rudeness" - romanticism was in its forte at the time - but maybe also because it was written in the south-western dialect of Finnish, while Ahlqvist himself preferred north-eastern dialects of his homelands. The Fennomans also disapproved of its depiction of not-so-virtuous rural life that was far from their idealized point of view, and his excessive drinking may have alienated some. In 1865 Kivi won the State Prize for his still often performed comedy Nummisuutarit (The Cobblers on the Heath). However, the less than enthusiastic reception of his books was taking its toll and he was already drinking heavily. His main benefactor Charlotta Lnnqvist could not help him after the 1860s. Physical deterioration and the development of schizophrenia set in, and Kivi died in poverty at the age of 38. In 1995-1996, Finnish composer Einojuhani Rautavaara wrote an opera about Kivi's life and works. In 2002 director Jari Halonen's movie The Life of Aleksis Kivi premiered in Finnish cinemas.
David Lindsay-Abaire (born November 30, 1969) is an American playwright and lyricist. He received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 2007 for his play Rabbit Hole, which also earned several Tony Award nominations.
Carolyn Wells (June 18, 1862-March 26, 1942) was an American author and poet (born in Rahway, New Jersey, the daughter of William E. and Anna Wells. She died at the Flower-Fifth Avenue Hospital in New York City in 1942. She had been married to Hadwin Houghton, the heir of the Houghton-Mifflin publishing empire founded by Bernard Houghton. Wells also had an impressive collection of volumes of poetry by others. She bequeathed her collection of Walt Whitman poetry, said to be one of the most important of its kind for its completeness and rarity, to the Library of Congress.
Sir E. Ray Lankester KCB, FRS (15 May 1847 13 August 1929) was a British zoologist, born in London. An invertebrate zoologist and evolutionary biologist, he held chairs at University College London and Oxford University. He was the third Director of the Natural History Museum, and was awarded the Copley Medal of the Royal Society.
Alan Park (born in Scarborough, Ontario on November 5, 1962) is a Canadian comedian and political satirist best known for his appearances on the Royal Canadian Air Farce. Alan gives humorous commentary on current events.
George Bruce Malleson (8 May 1825 - 1 March 1898) was an English officer in India and an author, born in Wimbledon. Educated at Winchester, he obtained a cadetship in the Bengal infantry in 1842, and served through the second Burmese War. His subsequent appointments were in the civil line, the last being that of guardian to the young maharaja of Mysore. He retired with the rank of colonel in 1877, having been created C.S.I. in 1872.
