#Authors born on September 27 include Jim Thompson (The Killer Inside Me), Sheila Williams (Asimov’s SF Magazine), and Irvine Welsh (Trainspotting). #booksky

#Authors born on September 26 include Winsor McCay (Little Nemo in Slumberland), J. Frank Dobie, T.S. Eliot (“The Waste Land”), L.W. Currey, Jane Smiley (MOO), and Tanya Huff (Blood Books). #booksky

#Authors born on September 25 include Lu Xun (A Madman’s Diary) and William Faulkner (The Sound and the Fury). #booksky

#Authors born on September 24 include Horace Walpole (The Castle of Otranto), F. Scott Fitzgerald (The Great Gatsby), Wilson Rawls (Where the Red Fern Grows), John Brunner (Stand on Zanzibar), and John Kessel (Pride and Prometheus).

#Authors born on September 23 include Jane Taylor (“Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star”), Baroness Orczy (The Scarlet Pimpernel), Pauline Réage (Story of O), Richard Wilson (“Mother to the World”), and Peter David (comics).

#Authors born on September 22 include Rosamunde Pilcher (The Shell Seekers), Fay Weldon (The Lives and Loves of a She-Devil), Thomas Harris (The Silence of the Lambs), Carter Scholz (Radiance), and Elizabeth Bear (“Shoggoths in Bloom”).

#Authors born on September 21 include H.G. Wells (The Time Machine), Chuck Jones (Looney Tunes), Fannie Flagg (Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe), Stephen King (Carrie), Kelley Eskridge (Solitaire), and Andy Duncan (“Beluthahatchie”).

#Authors born on September 20 include Upton Sinclair (The Jungle), Charles Williams (War in Heaven), Keith Roberts (Pavane), Jude Deveraux (Remembrance), Steve Gerber (Howard the Duck), George R.R. Martin (The Armageddon Rag), James P. Blaylock (The Last Coin), and A.A. Attanasio (Radix).

#Authors born on September 19 include Leo VI Sophos (Problematica), William Golding (Lord of the Flies), Damon Knight (“To Serve Man”), Robin Scott Wilson (Clarion), Hilary Bailey (Fifty-First State), Tanith Lee (Death’s Master), Laurie R. King (A Grave Talent), 1/2

#Authors born on September 18 include Samuel Johnson, Francis Stevens (The Citadel of Fear), Grey Owl, Joe Kubert (Tor), Lynn Abbey (Thieves’ World), Gary Regan (The Joy of Mixology), and Steven Pinker (How the Mind Works).

#Authors born on Sep 17: Johann August Apel (Fantasmagoriana), William Carlos Williams (poet), John Creasey (Gideon’s Way), Jerry Siegel (Superman), Mary Stewart (The Crystal Cave), Robert B. Parker (Spenser), Ken Kesey (One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest), and Gail Carson Levine (Ella Enchanted).

#Authors born on September 16 include Anna Kingsford (Dreams and Dream Stories), H.A. Rey (Curious George), Henry Louis Gates Jr. (Finding Your Roots), Lisa Tuttle (“The Bone Flute”), Kurt Busiek (Astro City), Mike Mignola (Hellboy), and Wil McCarthy (Rich Man’s Sky).

#Authors born on September 15 include James Fenimore Cooper (The Deerslayer), Agatha Christie (And Then There Were None), Adolfo Bioy Casares (The Invention of Morel), Norman Spinrad (Bug Jack Barron), Chelsea Quinn Yarbro (Hotel Transylvania), Howard Waldrop (A Dozen Tough Jobs), 1/2

#Authors born on September 14 include Dante Alighieri (Divine Comedy), Martin Caidin (Cyborg), Steve Rasnic Tem (Blood Kin), and Michael Reaves (Voodoo Child).

#Authors born on September 13 include J.B. Priestley (An Inspector Calls), Roald Dahl (Matilda), Warren Murphy (The Destroyer), Patrick O’Leary (Door Number Three), and Tom Holt (Expecting Someone Taller).

#Authors born on September 12 include H.L. Mencken, Stanislaw Lem (The Cyberiad), John Clute, and Charles L. Grant (Shadows).

#Authors born on September 11 include O’Henry (“The Gift of the Magi”), D.H. Lawrence (Lady Chatterly’s Lover), Manuel Mujica Láinez (The Wandering Unicorn), Ray Vukcevich, Sharon Lee (Balance of Trade), Cat Sparks (The Bride Price), and Colson Whitehead (The Nickel Boys).

#Authors born on September 10 include Carl Van Doren (Benjamin Franklin), Michael Hardwick, Mary Oliver (American Primitive), Peter Lovesey, Stephen Jay Gould, Pat Cadigan (Synners), Nancy A. Collins, and Alison Bechdel (Fun Home).

#Authors born on September 9 include Leo Tolstoy (War and Peace), Mary Hunter Austin (The Land of Little Rain), James Hilton (Goodbye, Mr. Chips), and Aleksandar Hemon (Nowhere Man).

#Authors born on September 8 include W.W. Jacobs (“The Monkey’s Paw”), Michael Frayn (The Tin Men), Ann Beattie (Chilly Scenes of Winter), Terry Tempest Williams (Refuge), and Gordon Van Gelder (editor).

#Authors born on September 7 include: Elinor Wylie (The Venetian Glass Nephew), Taylor Caldwell (Captains and the Kings), Malcolm Bradbury (Eating People is Wrong), and Joe Klein (Primary Colors).

#Authors born on Sep 6: Felix Salten (Bambi), Groff Conklin (anthologist), Robert M. Pirsig (Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance), Sergio Aragonés (Groo the Wanderer), Jennifer Egan (A Visit from the Goon Squad), Alice Sebold (The Lovely Bones), and China Miéville (Perdido Street Station).

#Authors born on September 5 include Arthur Koestler.

#Authors born on September 4 include Mary Renault (The Bull from the Sea), Richard Wright (Native Son), and Lee Ballentine (POLY: New Speculative Writing).

#Authors born on September 3 include Sarah Orne Jewett (A Country Doctor), Loren Eiseley (All the Strange Hours), Alison Lurie (Foreign Affairs), Cherry Wilder (Torin), Paul Chadwick (Concrete), and Malcolm Gladwell (Blink).

#Authors born on September 2 include Joseph Roth (Radetzky March) and Allen Drury (Advise and Consent).

#Authors born on September 1 include Edgar Rice Burroughs (Tarzan), Eleanor Alice Hibbert (prolific novelist), C.J. Cherryh (Cyteen), Timothy Zahn (Thrawn), David Wingrove (Chung Kuo), and Martha Wells (Murderbot).

#Authors born on August 31 include Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward (The Gates Ajar), DuBose Heyward (Porgy), William Saroyan (The Human Comedy), Robert Adams (Horseclans), G. Willow Wilson (Alif the Unseen), and Cassandra Khaw (The Library at Hellebore).

#Authors born on August 30 include Mary Shelley (Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus), Virginia Lee Burton (Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel), Judith Moffett (“Surviving”), Robert Crumb (Weirdo), and Molly Ivins (satirist).

#Authors born on Aug 29: Oliver Wendell Holmes (“Old Ironsides”), Georgia Wood Pangborn, Preston Sturges (The Great McGinty), Thomas N. Scortia (The Glass Inferno), Timothy Ferris (The Science of Liberty), Temple Grandin, Janeen Webb (Dreaming Down-Under), and Nancy Holder (“Lady Madonna”).

#Authors born on August 28 include Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (Faust), Sheridan Le Fanu (Carmilla), Robertson Davies (Fifth Business), Bernard Wolfe (Limbo), Jack Vance (The Last Castle), Vonda N. McIntyre (Dreamsnake), and Barbara Hambly (Those Who Hunt the Night).

#Authors born on August 27 include Theodore Dreiser (Sister Carrie), C.S. Forester (Horatio Hornblower), Norah Lofts (I Met a Gypsy), T.L. Sherred (Alien Island), Ira Levin (Rosemary’s Baby), Antonia Fraser (The Gunpowder Plot), Edward Bryant (“giANTS”), Richard Kadrey (Sandman Slim), 1/2

#Authors born on August 26 include John Buchan (The Thirty-Nine Steps), Gerald Kersh (Nightshade and Damnation), Julio Cortázar (Blow-Up and Other Stories), Barbara Ehrenreich (Nickel and Dimed), and Paula Hawkins (The Girl on the Train).

Great news! Thanks to a generous donation from Rich Horton (richhorton314252.substack.com), the story "I Feel Good" by Glen Engel-Cox (@engel-cox.com), with its afterword, is now free to read forever. It will never be paywalled again. Enjoy!

#Authors born on August 25 include Bret Harte (Paint Your Wagon), Walt Kelly (Pogo), Dorothy Dunnett (The Game of Kings), Carolyn G. Hart (cozy mystery), Frederick Forsyth (The Day of the Jackal), Martin Amis (Money), and Laura Anne Gilman (The Cold Eye).

#Authors born on 24 August include Max Beerbohm (Zuleika Dobson), Jean Rhys (Wide Sargasso Sea), Jorge Luis Borges (Ficciones), James Tiptree, Jr. (Brightness Falls from the Air), A.S. Byatt (Possession), Larry Gonick (Cartoon History), Alexander McCall Smith (The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency) 1/2

#Authors born on August 22 include George Herriman (Krazy Kat), Dorothy Parker (Algonquin wit), Ray Bradbury (Fahrenheit 451), Annie Proulx (The Shipping News), and Will Shetterly (Dogland).

#Author bday Aug 21: Aubrey Beardsley (The Story of Venus and Tannhäuser), Miriam Allen deFord (“A Death in the Family”), M.M. Kaye (The Far Pavilions), Anthony Boucher (Nine Times Nine), Robert Stone (Dog Soldiers), Lucius Shepard (Life During Wartime), Lindsey Davis (Falco), and Vox Day (asshole).

Excited to announce a new sale today for a Terry Pratchett pastiche piece that I've been so wanting to see out in the world! Will share the publication when available.

#Authors born on August 20 include H.P. Lovecraft (The Mountains of Madness), Taro Gomi (Everyone Poops), Greg Bear (Blood Music), and Greg Egan (“Oceanic”).

#Authors born on August 19 include John Dryden (“An Essay upon Satire”), Ogden Nash (poet), William Gresham (Nightmare Alley), Gene Roddenberry (screenwriter), and Mary Doria Russell (The Sparrow).

#Authors born on August 18 include Hugo Bettauer (The Joyless Street), Brian W. Aldiss (Hothouse), and Brian Michael Bendis (House of M).

#Authors born on August 17 include V.S. Naipaul (A House for Mr Biswas), Trina Robbins (comics), Neil Clarke (editor), and Rae Carson (The Girl of Fire and Thorns).

#Authors born on August 16 include Hugo Gernsback (editor), T.E. Lawrence (Seven Pillars of Wisdom), Hal Foster (Prince Valiant), Georgette Heyer (regency romance), Diana Wynne Jones (Howl’s Moving Castle), and Andrew J. Offutt (Iron Lords).

#Authors born on August 15 include Walter Scott (The Heart of Mid-Lothian), E. Nesbit (Five Children and It), Robert Benchley (How to Sleep), Julia Child (Mastering the Art of French Cooking), and Robert L. Forward (Dragon’s Egg).

#Authors born on August 14 include John Galsworthy (The Forsyte Saga), Russell Baker (Growing Up), Lindsay Clarke (The Chymical Wedding), Steve Martin (a wild and crazy guy), Danielle Steel (Fine Things), Gary Larson (The Far Side), Joan Slonczewski (A Door Into Ocean), and William Shunn (format).

I'm in Seattle this weekend for the World SF Convention--please say hello if you're also here. Here's my panelist schedule:

#Authors born on August 13 include Pauline Hopkins (Of One Blood; Or, the Hidden Self), Alfred Hitchcock (filmmaker), and Sharon Kay Penman (Time and Chance).

#Authors born on August 12 include Edith Hamilton (Mythology), Mary Roberts Rinehart (The Circular Staircase), William Goldman (Adventures in the Screen Trade), and Sue Monk Kidd (The Secret Life of Bees).

#Authors born on August 11 include Enid Blyton (Famous Five), Alex Haley (Roots), Alan E. Nourse (Blade Runner [really, check it out]), Bud Sparhawk (Sam Boone), and Joanna Cole (Magic School Bus).