You can find and buy the books relating to our author birthdays at the LitStack Bookshop on our list of Sharon’s Birthday Picks.
Here are seven author birthdays for this week.
Check out which authors are your favorites, and find out who shares your day.
In This Week’s Author Birthdays
Laurell K. Hamilton – February 19
On this day, February 19, in 1963, Laurell K. Hamilton was born in Heber Springs, Alabama. She is best known for her numerous books featuring Anita Blake: necromancer, animist, vampire hunter and supernatural consultant to law enforcement. She also is author of the Merry Gentry series, where a princess of faerie lives in the “real” world as a private investigator.
The movement of her work from dark crime thriller to supernatural erotica has alienated some readers, but her works still remain incredibly popular. Currently living near St. Louis, Missouri, today she turns 61.
Richard Matheson – February 20
On this day, February 20, in 1926, Richard Matheson was born in Allendale, New Jersey. Author of such well known works as I Am Legend, The Shrinking Man and What Dreams May Come, he also wrote for television, including the Star Trek episode “The Enemy Within”, and numerous episodes of The Twilight Zone including the popular “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet”.
He received lifetime achievement awards from both the World Fantasy Convention and the Horror Writers Association, and in 2010 he was inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame. He died in 2013, at age 87.
Chuck Palahniuk – February 21
On this day, February 21, in 1962, novelist and essayist Chuck Palahniuk was born in Pasco, Washington. Most often labeled a writer in the horror genre, he calls his works (especially his early works) “transgressional fiction.” His most recognized work, Fight Club (the novel on which the film was based) was actually written in response to his publisher rejecting an earlier book on the grounds that it was “too disturbing.”
He purposefully wrote Fight Club to be even more disturbing, and was surprised when the publisher agreed to produce it. Today he turns 62.
Edna St. Vincent Millay – February 22
On this day, February 22, in 1892, poet Edna St. Vincent Millay was born in Rockland, Maine. When she was still in her teens, she wrote the poem “Renascence” for a contest and was immediately catapulted into fame, mainly because it took 4th place when it was obviously the superior work. An early feminist, her works often used images of female sexuality, and she was not reticent with displaying her own bisexuality.
Her work, The Ballad of the Harp-Weaver, won the 1923 Pulitzer Prize, and in 1943 she was awarded the Frost Medal for her lifetime contribution to American poetry. She died of a heart attack in 1950; she was only 58 years old.
W.E.B. Du Bois – February 23
On this day, February 23, in 1868, W. E. B. Du Bois was born in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. An early black leader and civil rights activist (he was one of the founders of the NAACP), he was also a prolific author. His collection of essays, The Souls of Black Folk, is an influential work in African American literature and his 1935 novel, Black Reconstruction in America, challenged the prevailing belief that blacks were responsible for the failures of the Reconstruction Era.
His 1940 autobiography Dusk of Dawn is regarded as one of the first scientific treatises in the field of American sociology; he published two other life stories which contained essays on sociology, politics and history. He died in 1963, at the age of 95.
Laila Lalami – February 24
On this day, February 24, in 1968, Laila Lalami was born in Rabat, Morocco, moving to the US in 1992 where she completed a PhD in linguistics at the University of Southern California. In 2015 her novel The Moor’s Account was longlisted for the Man Booker Award and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, winning the Langum Prize for Historical Fiction as well as the American Book Award. Her 2019 book, The Other Americans, was a Los Angeles Times bestseller and finalist for the National Book Award, winning the Joyce Carol Oates Prize.
Her essays and criticism have appeared in the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, the Guardian, and the New York Times. Today, she turns 56.
Anthony Burgess – February 25
On this day, February 25, in 1917, Anthony Burgess was born in Manchester, England. Although mainly remembered for his dystopian A Clockwork Orange, he was author of over 30 novels, as well as many librettos and screenplays (including Franco Zeffirelli’s mini-series, Jesus of Nazareth). He also was a literary critic and a well-known linguist, translating versions of Cyrano de Bergerac and Oedipus, the King, and creating language treatments such as the hooligan slang in A Clockwork Orange and the prehistoric language in Quest for Fire.
But even with all this, what he really wanted to be remembered as was a composer, with over 250 musical works to his credit. He died in 1993 at age 76.
Other LitStack Resources
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