"Ann Beattie, short story writer and novelist and one of the nation's most important fiction writers, has received critical acclaim for her depiction of the generation of Americans who grew up in the 60s. She has published six collections of short stories including Park City (1998), What Was Mine (1991), and The Burning House (1982), and six novels including My Life, Starring Dara Falcon (1997), Another You (1995), Picturing Will (1990), and Chilly Scenes of Winter (1976)...." click here to read more

"Ambrose Gwinett Bierce came into this world on June 24, 1842 in Meigs County, Ohio, son of Marcus Aurelius and Laura Sherwood Bierce. He was the youngest of a large brood of children, whom Marcus, for reasons unknown, anointed with names beginning with 'A.' Details on his childhood are sketchy. He left his family in 1857 to live in Indiana, working as a "printer's devil" for an abolitionist newspaper. He eventually came to live with uncle Lucius Verus in Ohio, then attended the Kentucky Military Institute for a year before dropping out..." Click here to read more

"Edgar Allan Poe was born January 19, 1809 in Boston, where his mother had been employed as an actress. Elizabeth Arnold Poe died in Richmond on December 8, 1811, and Edgar was taken into the family of John Allan, a member of the firm of Ellis and Allan, tobacco-merchants...." Click here to read more from the Poe Museum

"Edith Wharton (1862-1937) was born into a tightly controlled society known as "Old New York" at a time when women were discouraged from achieving anything beyond a proper marriage. Wharton broke through these strictures to become one of America's greatest writers..." Click here to read more