Contributed by: Mark Woodard

 

Do you share a birthday with your favorite author? Here, we take a look at novelists, poets, journalists, and other writers born during the month of October. Click here to find titles from these authors in our collection.

 

1

Jimmy Carter (1924) An Hour Before Daylight, Christmas in Plains

Tim O’Brien (1946) The Things They Carried, In the Lake of the Woods

 

2

Wallace Stevens (1879) Poet, The Snow Man, The Emperor of Ice-Cream

Graham Greene (1904) The End of the Affair, Brighton Rock, Travels with My Aunt

 

3

Thomas Wolfe (1900) Look Homeward, Angel, You Can’t Go Home Again

James Herriot (1916) All Things Great and Small, All Things Bright and Beautiful

Gore Vidal (1925) Myra Breckinridge, The City and the Pillar, Lincoln, Empire

Alvin Toffler (1928) Future Shock, The Third Wave

 

4

Damon Runyon (1880) Guys and Dolls, Bloodhounds of Broadway

Jackie Collins (1937) Hollywood Wives, Lucky, The Santangelos

Roy Blount, Jr. (1941) Humorist, Be Sweet, Alphabetter Juice

Anne Rice (1941) Interview with the Vampire, The Vampire Lestat (The Vampire Chronicles)

Russell Simmons (1957) Success Through Stillness, Do You!

 

5

Neil deGrasse Tyson (1958) Astrophysics for People in a Hurry, The Pluto Files

David Shannon (1959) A Bad Case of Stripes, The Rain Came Down

 

6

Jonathan Alter (1957) Political Essayist, The Center Holds, The Defining Moment

Joseph Finder (1958) The Switch, The Fixer, Killer Instinct

Jeffrey Zaslow (1958) The Girls From Ames, The Magic Room

 

7

Amiri Baraka (1934) Poet, Dutchman, Blues People

Thomas Keneally (1935) Schindler’s List, The Daughters of Mars

Diane Ackerman (1948) The Zookeeper’s Wife, One Hundred Names for Love

Dan Savage (1964) It Gets Better, American Savage, The Kid

Sherman Alexie (1966) The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian, War Dances

 

8

Frank Herbert (1920) Dune Chronicles, The Eyes of Heisenberg

Faith Ringgold (1930) Harlem Renaissance Party, Tar Beach, We Came to America

Harvey Pekar (1939) Underground comic book writer, American Splendor series

R.L. Stine (1943) Goosebumps series, Fear Street series

 

9

Belva Plain (1915) Heartwood, Her Father’s House, The Sight of the Stars

Michael Palmer (1942) Resistant, Trauma, Mercy

 

10

Harold Pinter (1930) Nobel Prize playwright, The Homecoming, Betrayal

Nora Roberts (1950) Stars of Mithra series, Come Sundown, The Obsession

 

11

Elmore Leonard (1925) Get Shorty, Be Cool, Hombre

James M. McPherson (1936) Battle Cry of Freedom, The War That Forged a Nation

Richard Paul Evans (1962) Michael Vey series, The Christmas Box, The Gift

 

12

Ann Petry (1908) The Street, The Narrows

Alice Childress (1912) A Hero Ain’t Nothin’ But a Sandwich, Like One of the Family

James Crumley (1939) The Last Good Kiss, The Wrong Case, Dancing Bear

Richard Price (1949) Lush Life, Clockers, The Wanderers

 

13

Arna Bontemps (1902) Black Thunder, God Sends Sunday, Drums at Dusk

Frank D. Gilroy (1925) Playwright, The Subject Was Roses, The Only Game in Town

Emily Gould (1981) And the Heart Says Whatever, Friendship

 

14

e.e. cummings (1894) Poet, Etcetera, I Carry Your Heart With Me

Katherine Mansfield (1888) The Garden Party, Miss Briss

Hannah Arendt (1906) Philosopher, Eichmann in Jerusalem: The Report on the Banality of Evil

 

15

P.G. Wodehouse (1881) Jeeves and Wooster series (Right Ho, Jeeves!, My Man Jeeves)

Mario Puzo (1920) The Godfather, Omerta, The Sicilian

Ed McBain a/k/a Evan Hunter (1926) 87th Precinct suspense series, The Blackboard Jungle

Michael Lewis (1960) Moneyball, The Blind Side, The Big Short

 

16

Noah Webster (1758) An American Dictionary of the English Language

Oscar Wilde (1854) The Importance of Being Earnest, The Picture of Dorian Gray

Eugene O’Neill (1888) Long Day’s Journey Into Night, The Iceman Cometh

Günter Grass (1927) Nobel Prize Literature, The Tin Drum, Dog Years

Elinor Lipman (1950) The Inn at Lake Devine, The Family Man

 

17

Nathanael West (1903) The Day of the Locust, Miss Lonelyhearts

Jimmy Breslin (1930) Journalist,The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight

Robert Jordan (1948) Wheel of Time series, original Conan the Barbarian series

Wally Lamb (1950) She’s Come Undone, I Know This Much is True

 

18

Arthur Miller (1917)  The Crucible, Death of a Salesman, A View from the Bridge, All My Sons

Ntozake Shange (1948) For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf, Some Sing, Some Cry

Terry McMillan (1951) Waiting to Exhale, How Stella Got Her Groove Back

 

19

Pierre Choderlos de Laclos (1741) Les Liaisons Dangereuses (Dangerous Liaisons)

John LeCarre (1931) The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, George Smiley series

Dan Gutman (1955) Weird School series

Tracy Chevalier (1962) Girl With a Pearl Earring, Fallen Angels

 

20

Arthur Rimbaud (1854) Poet,  Illuminations, Season in Hell

Fannie Hurst (1885) Imitation of Life, Backstreet, Humoresque

Robert Pinsky (1940) U.S. Poet Laureate, Gulf Music, At the Foundling Hospital

 

21

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772) Poet, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Kubla Khan

Ursula K. Le Guin (1929) Earthsea Cycle series, The Left Hand of Darkness

 

22

Doris Lessing (1919) Nobel Prize Literature, The Golden Notebook

Ann Rule (1931) True Crime author, The Stranger Beside Me, Small Sacrifices

Debbie Macomber (1948) Blossom Street series, Rose Harbor series

 

23

Michael Crichton (1942) Jurassic Park, The Lost World, The Andromeda Strain

Michael Eric Dyson (1958) Tears We Cannot Stop, The Black Presidency

Randy Pausch (1960) The Last Lecture

Laurie Halse Anderson (1961) Wintergirls, Chains. Speak, Twisted

Augusten Burroughs (1965) Running With Scissors, Possible Side Effects, A Wolf at the Table

 

24

Moss Hart (1904) Playwright, The Man Who Came to Dinner, Act One

Emma Donoghue (1969) Room, Frog Music, The Wonder

Gabrielle Zevin (1977) The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry, The Hole We’re In

 

25

Geoffrey Chaucer (1342) The Canterbury Tales

Anne Tyler (1941) The Accidental Tourist, Breathing Lessons, A Spool of Blue Thread, Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant

Bruce Feiler (1964) Walking the Bible, Abraham: A Journey to the Heart of Three Faiths

 

26

Beryl Markham (1902) West with the Night

Pat Conroy (1945) The Great Santini, The Lords of Discipline, The Prince of Tides

Stephen L. Carter (1954) Jericho’s Fall, Palace Council

Stacy Schiff (1961) The Witches: Salem 1692, Cleopatra: A Life

Jim Butcher (1971) Codex Alera series, Dresden Files series

 

27

Emily Post (1872) Etiquette in Society

Dylan Thomas (1914) A Child’s Christmas in Wales, Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night

Sylvia Plath (1932)  Ariel, The Bell Jar

Maxine Hong Kingston (1940) The Woman Warrior, Tripmaster Monkey

 

28

Evelyn Waugh (1908) Brideshead Revisited, A Handful of Dust, Decline and Fall

Anne Perry (1938) William Monk mystery series, Charlotte and Thomas Pitt mystery series

 

29

Dominick Dunne (1925) The Two Mrs. Grenvilles, An Inconvenient Woman

David Remnick (1958) Journalist, Editor-in-Chief The New Yorker

 

30

Ezra Pound (1885) Poet, The Cantos, The Spirit of Romance

Robert Caro (1935) The Power Broker, The Passage of Power

Andrew Solomon (1963) The Noonday Demon, Far from the Tree

 

31

John Keats (1795) Poet, Ode on a Grecian Urn, A Song About Myself, Ode to a Nightingale

Dick Francis (1920) Even Money, High Stakes, Wild Horses

Susan Orlean (1955) The Orchid Thief, Rin Tin Tin: The Life and the Legend

Neal Stephenson (1959) Reamde, The Cobweb