Authors

H.P. Lovecraft

Born in Providence, Rhode Island, Lovecraft spent most of his life in New England. After his father's institutionalization in 1893, he lived affluently until his family's wealth dissipated after the death of his grandfather. He then lived with his mother, in reduced financial security, until her institutionalization in 1919. He began to write essays for the United Amateur Press Association, and in 1913 wrote a critical letter to a pulp magazine that ultimately led to his involvement in pulp fiction. He became active in the speculative fiction community and was published in several pulp magazines. Lovecraft moved to New York City, marrying Sonia Greene in 1924, and later became the center of a wider group of authors known as the "Lovecraft Circle". They introduced him to Weird Tales, which would become his most prominent publisher. Lovecraft's time in New York took a toll on his mental state and financial conditions. He returned to Providence in 1926 and produced some of his most popular works, including The Call of Cthulhu, At the Mountains of Madness, The Shadow over Innsmouth and The Shadow Out of Time. He would remain active as a writer for 11 more years until his death from intestinal cancer at the age of 46. From Wikipedia.

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Jamie Suzanne

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Julia Donaldson

Julia Donaldson CBE (born Julia Catherine Shields; born 16 September 1948) is an English writer and playwright, and the 2011–2013 Children's Laureate. She is best known for her popular rhyming stories for children, especially those illustrated by Axel Scheffler, which include The Gruffalo, Room on the Broom and Stick Man. She originally wrote songs for children's television but has concentrated on writing books since the words of one of her songs, "A Squash and a Squeeze", were made into a children's book in 1993. Of her 184 published works, 64 are widely available in bookshops. The remaining 120 are intended for school use and include her Songbirds phonic reading scheme, which is part of the Oxford University Press's Oxford Reading Tree.

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Margaret Mayo

See also: Margaret Mayo (American playwright) and Margaret Mayo (children's author) Margaret Mayo was born on 7 February 1936 in Staffordshire, England, and has remained within the country all of her life. She always loved reading, even to the extent of reading comics out loud to her twin brother when she was 8 years old. She left school at 15, and became to work. She married at 22, taking a break to have her two children, Adrian and Tina. Once they were at school she started back to work for the UK manager of a Danish company, and planned her further career by becoming a bilingual secretary. Unfortunately, she couldn't speak any languages other than her native English, so she began evening classes. In June 1974, she got the idea for a romantic short story—to this day she doesn't know where the idea came from or why, but she thanks her lucky stars because it kick-started her career. Pretty soon, the short story turned into a novel. At this point, she was unsure what step to take next. Margaret, and her mother before her, had always read Mills & Boon romance novels, and to actually be writing one excited her beyond measure. It was never her ambition to become a writer, in fact, her only writing experience was in letters to various pen pals around the world. She has, unfortunately, lost touch with them now and often wonders whether any of them have ever discovered that her chatty letters were the forerunner to her writing career. Luckily for her, the President was a Mills & Boon author who helped to guide her. While her first novel wasn't picked up, the next two she wrote were accepted at the same time, published on 1976, when she was 40. After published 8 books, she began writing full-time, and now she has over 65 to her credit. When she looks at them lined up on her bookshelf she wonders how she has managed to write all those millions of words. She is a hopeless romantic who loves writing. She falls in love with every one of her heroes and likes to boast about how many "love affairs" she's had.

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Megan McDonald

Megan Jo McDonald is an American children's literature author. Her most popular works is the series of books which concern a third grade girl named Judy Moody (written for grades 2–4). McDonald has also written many picture books for younger children and continues to write. Her most recent work was the Julie Albright series of books for American Girl. - Source: Wikipedia

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Barbara McMahon

Barbara McMahon was born on July 1 in northern Virginia, USA. She grew up in Virginia, moving to California to attend the University of California at Berkeley. Upon graduation, she remained in California, making the San Francisco Bay Area her home base while she worked as a flight attendant for an international airline. What fun that job proved - flying to different cities all over the world. On most trips, she had layovers lasting a day or two - enough time to see some of the local sights - and shops - and then it was on to the next country! She kept a journal while flying and today delights in being able to use some of the descriptions she jotted down to add authenticity to settings for some of her books. When her flying days ended, she began to work in the computer industry, rising to a vice presidency in a software development firm. In her "spare time," Barbara decided to give in to a long cherished desire to try her hand at writing. One of the first things she discovered was that writing was one thing, but getting a book written is difficult to do when things like real-life interfere. But finally she finished a book, submitted it to a publisher, and Harlequin Mills & Boon bought it! Come into the Sun (1983) was the first of over three dozen books sold to Harlequin Mills & Boon and Silhouette. After that first sale, a new dream arose - to write for a living and leave the hectic pace of the San Francisco Bay Area behind. Once her younger daughter graduated from high school, she did just that - quitting her "day job" to move to the Sierra Nevada mountains of California. "It's been wonderful!" reports Barbara. "I love every minute of living here!" What's special about Barbara's books, besides her ability to put the reader in another world full of the adventure she's sampled, can be summed up in one word: characters. They arrive on the page with fully developed pasts. Often her heroes have experienced betrayal that has hardened them. Lesser women would give up and move on, but, like the author herself, her heroines are empathetic and optimistic. They see the good in these honorable men and patiently nurture them to become equal partners in a relationship. Sometimes it's the heroine who has a past to overcome. But always, she's self-directed - a dynamic woman who knows what she wants and sets out to get it. For books with international settings, McMahon refers to her flight attendant's journal, but the U.S.American West is her favorite locale. She's as much at home on the back of a horse as she is behind an autograph table. She has participated in week-long horse drives, similar to the cattle drives in City Slickers, attends local rodeos, the Grand National Rodeo in San Francisco, and county fairs. To date, over five-and-a-half-million copies of her books have sold in thirty-five different countries in nineteen different languages. Her books routinely appear on the Waldenbooks bestseller list, the Ingram's Top 50 Requested Romances, and Amazon.com's bestselling lists. Bride of a Thousand Days made the USA Today bestseller list. With her recent nomination for a Romance Writers of America RITA Award, her books have either won or been a finalist in every major award in the romance industry. Dedicated to a strict work regimen to meet deadlines, Barbara still finds time to pursue her hobby of working on her family history, to serve on the board of directors of the local woman's networking group, and read voraciously. In memory of her mother who died from the disease, she actively supports breast cancer research. She is a member of Romance Writers of America, Novelists, Inc. and the NSDAR, which has nothing to do with writing, but does tie in with her love for genealogy!

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John Sandford

A Pulitzer-winning American journalist, John Roswell Camp was asked to write the Prey series of novels under the pseudonym John Sandford. With the popularity of that series, he continued to use the same pseudonym for subsequent novels, including even the sequels to Camp's earlier Kidd novels.

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Michelle Reid

Michelle Reid was born and grew up in Manchester in the Northwest of England with her four siblings. Her mother always animated to her children to read. She is married, and continues to live in England, but she adores to travel by the Mediterranean and to visit different countries. She is a popular British writer of over 30 romance novels for Mills & Boon since 1988.

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William E. Butterworth III

William Edmund Butterworth III, better known by his pen name W. E. B. Griffin, is an American writer of military and detective fiction with 38 novels in six series published under that name. He has also published under 11 other pseudonyms and three versions of his real name (W. E. Butterworth, William E. Butterworth, and most recently William E. Butterworth III). - Wikipedia

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Chantelle Shaw

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H. G. Wells

Herbert George Wells was an English author, best known for his work in the science fiction genre. He was also a prolific writer in many genres, including contemporary novels, history, politics and social commentary.

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Jodi Picoult

Jodi Picoult is the author of twenty-four novels, including the #1 New York Times bestsellers Small Great Things, Leaving Time, The Storyteller, Lone Wolf, Between the Lines, Sing You Home, House Rules, Handle with Care, Change of Heart, Nineteen Minutes, and My Sister’s Keeper. She lives in New Hampshire with her husband and three children.

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Susan Stephens

Susan Stephens was a professional singer before meeting her husband on the tiny Mediterranean island of Malta. In true romance style they met on Monday, became engaged on Friday and were married three months later. They are still very much in love, though Susan does not advise her three children to return home with a similar story as she may not take the news with the same fortitude as her own mother! Susan had written several non-fiction books when fate took a hand. At a charity costume ball there was an after-dinner auction. One of the lots - 'Spend A Day With An Author' - had been donated by bestselling Mills & Boon author Penny Jordan. Susan's husband bought this lot, and Penny was to become not just a great friend, but a wonderful mentor who encouraged Susan to write romance. Susan loves her family, her pets, her friends and her writing. She enjoys entertaining, travel and going to theatre and concerts. She reads voraciously, knits, cooks and plays the piano to relax, and can also be found throwing herself off mountains on a pair of skis or galloping through the countryside. Most of all Susan loves to hear from her readers all around the world!

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Cathy Gillen Thacker

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Essie Summers

Ethel Snelson Summers, well-known as Essie, was born on Bordesley Street in Christchurch, New Zealand on July 24, 1912. Her parents, Ethel Snelson (for whom she was named) and Edwin Summers, had immigrated to New Zealand from England exactly one year earlier. She had an older brother, Edwin and a younger brother, William. She grew up in a warm and happy home where reading and story-telling were highly valued, and from a very early age little Essie was making up her own stories. When a teacher read aloud "Emily of New Moon" by L.M. Montgomery, she knew then that she wanted to be a writer. When she was young she had red hair, like many of her heroines, and she has said that she had a very quick temper, which she later learned to control. Essie left school early for financial reasons and began work at Londontown Drapers and she did similar work for the next 13 years, until her marriage. Essie married William Flett, a minister, after a courtship conducted mainly by letters, and they settled into parish life together. They lived in various parts of the North and South Islands of New Zealand though they eventually settled in Hawke's Bay in the North Island. They had two children, William Temple and Elizabeth Lucia, and seven grandchildren. As a minister's wife and a mother, her life was very full, but she was still a prolific writer of short stories, poems and, for a time, a newspaper column. Finally, her husband told her that if she was to achieve her goal of having a novel published by the time she was forty-five, the time to start was now. With his help she was able to concentrate on her writing and had her first novel published the day after her forty-fifth birthday! She went on to become one of the world's most beloved romance writers and a strong supporter of other aspiring writers. When she had achieved some financial security with her writing, she and her husband fulfilled a life-long dream and travelled to Great Britain and parts of Europe, where she was able to visit many of the places where her ancesters had lived. She writes very movingly in her autobiography about seeing the places where her parents had come from and meeting her English relatives. Essie went on to use many of those settings in her novels. In all she wrote fifty-six novels and an autobiography, plus her family history, before her death in Napier at the age of eighty-six on August 27, 1998. She was predeceased by her husband in 1984. Many of her fans have travelled to New Zealand to see for themselves the country that she described so vividly in her books. Because of this Essie Summers was offered The Order Of The British Empire for her contributions to tourism.

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Gary Paulsen

Gary James Paulsen (May 17, 1939 – October 13, 2021) was an American writer of children's and young adult fiction, best known for coming of age stories about the wilderness. He was the author of more than 200 books and wrote more than 200 magazine articles and short stories, and several plays, all primarily for teenagers. He won the Margaret Edwards Award from the American Library Association in 1997 for his lifetime contribution in writing for teens.[ Source: Gary Paulsen on Wikipedia

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Jack London

John Griffith London (born John Griffith Chaney; January 12, 1876 – November 22, 1916) was an American novelist, journalist, and social activist. A pioneer in the world of commercial magazine fiction, he was one of the first writers to become a worldwide celebrity and earn a large fortune from writing. He was also an innovator in the genre that would later become known as science fiction. His most famous works include The Call of the Wild and White Fang, both set in the Klondike Gold Rush, as well as the short stories "To Build a Fire", "An Odyssey of the North", and "Love of Life". He also wrote about the South Pacific in stories such as "The Pearls of Parlay", and "The Heathen". London was part of the radical literary group "The Crowd" in San Francisco and a passionate advocate of unionization, workers' rights, socialism, and eugenics. He wrote several works dealing with these topics, such as his dystopian novel The Iron Heel, his non-fiction exposé The People of the Abyss, The War of the Classes, and Before Adam. Source: Jack London on Wikipedia.

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Kate Walker

Kate Walker was born on 10 January 1950 in Nottinghamshire, England, but her family moved to West Yorkshire when she was just 18 months old, and she has always regarded Yorkshire as home. She was the middle child in a family of five girls, growing up in a home where books were vitally important, and she read anything she could get her hands on. Even before she could write she was making up stories. At the age of four she was telling the tale of The Three Little Raindrops Drippy, Droppy, and Droopy to her two younger sisters. She can't remember a time when she wasn't scribbling away at something, and wrote her first "book" when she was 11. But everyone told her that she would never make a living as a writer, and that she should work toward a more secure career. So she decided that if she couldn't write books, at least she could work with them, and settled for becoming a librarian. On leaving school she went to the University College of Wales, Aberystwyth to study English and librarianship. While there, she met her husband, who was also studying at the college. They married and moved back north, eventually settling in Lincolnshire, where she worked as a children's librarian until her son was born. After three years of being a full-time housewife and mother she was ready for a new challenge, but needed something she could do at home, so she turned to her old love of writing. Her first attempts at writing novels were done at the kitchen table, often working late into the night when her son was asleep, or during a few snatched hours while he was out at nursery school. The first two novels she sent off to Mills & Boon were rejected, but the third attempt was successful. She can still remember the moment that a letter of acceptance arrived instead of the rejection slip she had been dreading. She must have read that letter over and over a hundred times before what it said sank in, and for days she kept checking it just to make sure she hadn't been dreaming. But the moment she really realised that she was a published writer was when copies of her first book, The Chalk Line, arrived just in time to be one of her best Christmas presents ever. Kate is often asked if she's a romantic person because she writes romances. Her answer is that if being romantic means caring about other people enough to make that extra special effort for them, then, yes, she is. Romance is about making the important people in your life feel valued and letting them know that you care. But she also writes about relationships and the difficulties people sometimes have in understanding each other, or expressing their feelings, or overcoming problems. Sometimes, when the right words won't come, or an idea hasn't worked out as she thought, she wonders why she doesn't have a regular nine-to-five job but only sometimes. When the story's flowing and the characters come alive, she really can't imagine doing anything else. And there's a tremendous satisfaction in knowing that she's doing what she always dreamed of and proving wrong all those people who said she would never make a successful career out of her writing. During her working hours, her four cats, all adopted from the RSPCA, keep her company in her study, though they have to be dissuaded from sitting on the piles of papers that they are convinced are there just for their benefit. Fitting in hobbies around writing and being a wife and mother can be difficult, but Kate always finds time to read. She loves all sorts of fiction, especially romance, obviously, but she also enjoys historical novels, detective fiction, and long, absorbing biographies, and she can spend hours in bookshops, just browsing. Kate loves to hear from her fans. Kate says "I've watched my books go out into the shops, not just here in the UK where I lives but in so many countries all over the world and I've been thrilled to think that so many readers, of all colours, creeds and races, have bought and enjoyed the stories that I've told, sympathised with my heroines and fallen in love with my heroes. I've been sent copies of my books in so many different styles and different languages and known that they've gone out to places I'll never see, to be read by so many people that, sadly, I'll never meet. But we will always share that special link because of my books."

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Margaret Weis

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Rachel Renée Russell

Rachel Renée Russell (born on Mar 13, 1959; not to be confused with Rachel Russell, Baroness Russell) is an American cartoonist, attorney and author of the children's book series Dork Diaries and its spin-off The Misadventures of Max Crumbly. Russell grew up in Saint Joseph, Michigan, and has four younger siblings, two sisters and twin brothers. She has two children. Dork Diaries, written in a diary format, uses doodles, drawings, and comic strips to chronicle the daily life of the main character, Nikki Maxwell, as she struggles to fit in and survive middle school. The series is based on Russell's middle school experiences. Her daughter, Nikki, is the illustrator of the series. The main character, Nikki Maxwell, is named after her daughter. The Misadventures of Max Crumbly is about a character, Maxwell Crumbly, who keeps a diary about his challenges in middle school. He is introduced in Dork Diaries: Tales From A Not-So Perfect Pet Sitter. As of January 2019, more than 45 million copies of Dork Diaries have been sold worldwide in 42 languages. Source:Rachel Renée Russell

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Rex Stout

Rex Todhunter Stout (December 1, 1886 – October 27, 1975) was an American writer noted for his detective fiction. His best-known characters are the detective Nero Wolfe and his assistant Archie Goodwin, who were featured in 33 novels and 39 novellas or short stories between 1934 and 1975.

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Sara Wood

Sara Wood was born in England. She has wonderful memories of her childhood. Her parents were desperately poor but their devotion to family life gave her a feeling of great security. Sara's father was one of four fostered children and never knew his parents, hence his joy with his own family. Birthday parties were sensational her father would perform brilliantly as a Chinese magician or a clown or invent hilarious games and treasure hunts. From him she learnt that working hard brought many rewards, especially self-respect. During her degree course she met her husband, a kind, thoughtful, attentive man who is her friend and soulmate. At 21, she married and had her first son at 22. Now she has another three children. She loved teaching in Sussex which she did for twelve years. Her switch into writing came about in a peculiar way. Richie, her elder son, had always been nuts about natural history and had a huge collection of animal skulls. At the age of fifteen he decided he'd write an information book about collecting. Heinemann and Pan, prestigious publishers, eagerly fell on the book and when it was published it won the famous Times Information Book award. Interviews, TV and magazine articles followed. Encouraged by his success, she thought she could write too and had several information books for children published. Then she saw Sheila Coates Holland (Charlotte Lamb) being wined and dined by Mills & Boon on a television programme and decided she could do Sheila's job! But she'd rarely read fiction before, so she bought twenty books and analysed them carefully, then wrote one of her own. Amazingly it was accepted and published in 1986, she began writing full time until 2004. Sara and her husband moved to a small country estate in Cornwall which was a paradise. Her sons visited often; Richie being married to Heidi and with two daughters; Simon rushing in after some danger- filled action in Alaska or Hawaii etc, protecting the environment with Greenpeace. Sara qualified as a homeopath, caring for the health of her family and friends. But Paradise is always fleeting. Sara's husband became seriously ill and it was clear that they had to move somewhere less demanding on time and effort. After a nightmare year of worrying about him, nursing and watching him like a hawk, she was relieved when they'd sold up and moved back to Sussex. Their current house is large and thatched and sits in the pretty rolling downs with wonderful walks and views all around. They live nearer to the boys (men!) and see them often. Richie and Heidi are expecting another baby, Simon has a baby son and a new, dangerous, passion flinging himself off mountains (paragliding). The three hills nearby frequently entice him down. She adores seeing her family (mother, mother-in-law too) around the table at Christmas. Sara feels fortunate that although she's had tough times and has sometimes been desperately unhappy, she is now surrounded by love and feels she can weather any storm to come.

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Alexander McCall Smith

Alexander McCall Smith, often referred to as ‘Sandy’, is one of the world’s most prolific and best-loved authors. For many years he was a professor of Medical Law and worked in universities in the UK and abroad before turning his hand to writing fiction. He has written and contributed to more than 100 books including specialist academic titles, short story collections, and a number of immensely popular children’s books. His first book, The White Hippo—a children’s book, was published by Hamish Hamilton in 1980. But it wasn’t until the publication of the highly successful The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series that Alexander became a household name. The series has now sold over twenty million copies in the English language alone, and since the books took off, he has devoted his time to writing. His various series of books have been translated into forty-six languages and become bestsellers throughout the world. These include the popular 44 Scotland Street novels, first published as a serial novel in the Scotsman newspaper and now the longest-running serial novel in the world; the Isabel Dalhousie novels, and the von Igelfeld series. He is also the author of the Corduroy Mansions series, which started life as an engaging cross-media serial written for the Telegraph online. In addition to these series, Alexander has written a number of stand-alone novels, including The Forever Girl, Fatty O’Leary’s Dinner Party, My Italian Bulldozer, The Second Worst Restaurant in France, Chance Developments and Pianos and Flowers. Earlier stand alone books include Trains and Lovers: A Heart’s Journey; La’s Orchestra Saves the World; and Emma—a reworking of the classic Jane Austen novel. He has also authored many non-fiction titles, the latest of which are A Work of Beauty: Alexander McCall Smith’s Edinburgh and What W.H. Auden Can Do For You. Recently Alexander has written a new children’s series—The School Ship Tobermory—and we now have four books in the series. This increases the number of children’s books he has written to more than thirty. Alexander has received numerous awards for his writing and holds twelve honorary doctorates from universities in Europe and North America. In 2007 he received a CBE for services to literature and in 2011 was honoured by the President of Botswana for services through literature to the country. In 2015 he received the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction and in 2017 The National Arts Club of America—Medal of Honor for Achievement in Literature.

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Anonymous

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C. J. Cherryh

Carolyn Janice Cherry (born September 1, 1942), better known by the pen name C. J. Cherryh, is an American writer of speculative fiction.

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Connie Mason

Connie Mason or Cara Miles is the best-selling author of more than fifty historical romances and novellas. Her tales of passion and adventure are set in exotic as well as American locales. Connie was named Story Teller of the Year in 1990 by Romantic Times and was awarded Career Achievement award in the Western category by Romantic Times in 1994. Connie makes her home in Tarpon Springs, Florida with her husband Jerry. Prior to her first published work in 1984, Connie was a full time homemaker. Always an avid reader, writing was one of Connie's dreams. In 1995 Connie was featured on a segment of the CBS news show 48 Hours, a television production that devoted an entire program to the romance novel industry. Connie was also featured in an article published by National Inquirer. In addition to writing and traveling, Connie enjoys telling anyone who will listen about her three children and nine grandchildren, and sharing memories of her years living abroad in Europe and Asia as the wife of a career serviceman. In her spare time Connie enjoys reading, dancing, playing bridge and freshwater fishing with her husband.

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Diana Wynne Jones

A British writer, principally of fantasy novels for children and adults as well as a small amount of non-fiction.

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Diane Hoh

American writer

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Marion Lennox

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Terry Brooks

Terence Dean Brooks (born January 8, 1944) is an American writer of fantasy fiction. He writes mainly epic fantasy, and has also written two movie novelizations. He has written 23 New York Times bestsellers during his writing career, and has over 21 million copies of his books in print. He is one of the biggest-selling living fantasy writers.

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Carl Gustav Jung

A Swiss psychologist and psychiatrist (<a href=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Jung>biography</a>, <a href=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Jung_publications>bibliography</a>).

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Jim Butcher

"Jim Butcher is a martial arts enthusiast with fifteen years of experience in various styles including Ryukyu Kempo, Tae Kwon Do, Gojo Shorei Ryu, and a sprinkling of Kung Fu. He is a skilled rider and has worked as a summer camp horse wrangler and performed in front of large audiences in both drill riding and stunt riding exhibitions. Jim enjoys fencing, singing, bad science fiction movies and live-action gaming. He lives in Missouri with his wife, son, and a vicious guard dog. Jim goes by the moniker Longshot in a number of online locales. He came by this name in the early 1990′s when he decided he would become a published author. Usually only 3 in 1000 who make such an attempt actually manage to become published; of those, only 1 in 10 make enough money to call it a living. The sale of a second series was the breakthrough that let him beat the long odds against attaining a career as a novelist. All the same, he refuses to change his nickname." Jim-Butcher.com

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Kate Chopin

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Kate Hewitt

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Margaret Pargeter

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Ruskin Bond

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Sherryl Woods

Sherryl Woods has been a journalist and television editor as well as an author. She has also been the coordinator for a motivational program for the employees of the University of Miami-Jackson Memorial Medical Center. She was born in Arlington, Virginia. She graduated from Ohio State University with a degree in journalism. Her first book was published in 1982 under a pseudonym. She also used a pseudonym for her second book. In 1986, she left her job and became a full-time writer. She has written romances and mysteries. For fun, she gardens, plays tennis and attends the theater. She divides her time between Colonial Beach, Virginia and Key Biscayne, Florida.

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Henry Patterson

James Graham is a pseudonym of Henry Patterson, writer of thrillers better known by another of his pen name, Jack Higgins.

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Kelley Armstrong

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Laura Ingalls Wilder

Laura Ingalls Wilder was an American writer known for the Little House on the Prairie series of children's novels (1932 to 1943) based on her childhood in a settler family, which were the basis for the television series 'Little House on the Prairie' during the 1970s and early 1980s.

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Mary Burchell

Mary Burchell was the pen name of Ida Cook and published all her novels under this name from 1936 to 1985. Ida Cook was born on 24 August 1904 at 37 Croft Avenue, Sunderland, England. With her older sister (Mary) Louise Cook (b. 1901), she attending the Duchess' School in Alnwick. Later the sisters took civil service jobs in London, and developed a passionate interest in opera. A constant presence at Covent Garden, the pair became close to some of the greatest singers of the era; Amelia Galli-Curci, Rosa Ponselle, Tito Gobbi and Maria Callas. They also came to know the Austrian conductor Clemens Krauss, and it was through he that Cooks learned of the persecution of European Jews. In 1934, Krauss's wife asked the sisters to help a friend to leave Germany. Having accomplished this, the sisters continued the good work, pretending to be eccentric opera fanatics willing to go anywhere to hear a favourite artist. Krauss assisted them, even arranging to perform in cities they needed to visit. The sisters made repeated trips to Germany, bringing back jewellery and valuables belonging to Jewish families. This enabled Jews to satisfy British requirements as regards financial security - Jews were not allowed to leave Germany with their money. Using many techniques of evasion, including re-labelling furs with London labels, the sisters enabled 29 persons to escape from almost certain death. The Cooks' own finances were little precarious, and when Ida obtained a contract with Mills and Boon to publish her first novel in 1936, she left the Civil Service to write full time. As Mary Burchell, she became a prolific writer of romantic fiction. Her great popularity helped the success of Mills and Boon, and guaranteed substantial income after the war. For many decades, her writing supported her two passions: refugees and young opera singers. Her flat in Dolphin Square at various times housed homeless European families. In 1950, Ida Cook wrote her autobiography: "We followed our stars", and in 1965, the Cook sisters were honoured as Righteous Gentiles by the Yad Vashem Martyrs and Heroes Remembrance Authority in Israel, thus joining Oskar Schindler among others. She helped to found and was for many years president of the Romantic Novelist's Association. As Mary Burchell, she wrote over a hundred and ten romance novels, many of which were translated, and her most famous work is "The Warrender Saga", a series about the opera world, full of real details. Ida Cook passed away on 22 December 1986 and her sister Louise in 1991.

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Mary Jo Putney

Mary Jo Putney was born in Upstate New York, USA. She obtained degrees in eighteenth-century English Literature and Industrial Design at Syracuse University, she did various forms of design work in California and England before inertia took over in Baltimore, Maryland, where she has lived very comfortably ever since, single with her cats. After purchasing her first computer for her freelance graphic design business, she decided to wrote her first novel. Her first book sold quickly and was published in 1987, thereby changing her life forever, in most ways for the better. She decided become a full-time writer as soon as possible. She has made all of the national bestseller lists including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, USAToday, and Publishers Weekly. Five of her books have been named among the year’s top five romances by The Library Journal. The Spiral Path and Stolen Magic were chosen as one of Top Ten romances of their years by Booklist, published by the American Library Association. A nine-time finalist for the Romance Writers of America RITA, she has won RITAs for Dancing on the Wind and The Rake and the Reformer and is on the RWA Honor Roll for bestselling authors. She has been awarded two Romantic Times Career Achievement Awards, four NJRW Golden Leaf awards, plus the NJRW career achievement award for historical romance.

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Rudyard Kipling

Rudyard Kipling was a British author and poet. Born in Bombay, in British India, he is best known for his works of fiction "The Jungle Book" (1894). He is regarded as a major "innovator in the art of the short story"; his children's books are enduring classics of children's literature. (Source)

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Tanith Lee

Tanith Lee was a British writer of science fiction, horror, and fantasy. She was the author of over 90 novels and 300 short stories, a children's picture book (Animal Castle), and many poems. She also wrote two episodes of the BBC science fiction series Blake's 7. She was the first woman to win the British Fantasy Award best novel award (also known as the August Derleth Award), for her book Death's Master (1980). Source: Wikipedia

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Caroline Anderson

Caroline Anderson's first romance novel was published in 1981 by Mills & Boon, and she specializes in medical romances. Her most long and popular series is "The Audley Memorial Hospital", where romance is the best medicine of all. In 2002, she published the original Double Destiny Duology, where Fran Williams lives two different lifes and loves. Now, she has created a new successful series, Yoxburgh, a tycoons's series. Caroline Anderson continues to write her romances from her home in Suffolk, England.

49 books

David A. Adler

American author of nearly 200 books for children and young adults, most notably the Cam Jansen mystery series, the "Picture Book of..." series, and several acclaimed works about the Holocaust for young readers.

49 books

Gene Wolfe

Gene Wolfe was born in Texas. After dropping out from Texas A&M University, he served in the Korean War, and later graduated from the University of Houston. He worked first as an engineer, notably designing part of the machine that produces Pringles potatoe chips, and later as the editor of a professional engineering magazine, Plant Engineering. Wolfe was a prolific writer, publishing over 30 novels and hundreds of short stories in his life. He was known for the complexity of his narratives and the depth of his characters, frequently using unreliable or fallible narrators to enhance his thematic focus on memory. His work explores topics of morality, often through the lens of his Catholic faith. Primarily recognized for his science fiction and fantasy works, Wolfe received a litany of recognition in those genres including the British Science Fiction, World Fantasy, British Fantasy, Locus, Nebula, and Campbell Memorial Awards. In 2012 he was recognized as the 29th Grand Master by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. Information from Tor Publishing and The New Yorker.

49 books

J. A. Jance

49 books

Jane Porter

Romance writer

49 books