Authors' Birthdays: April
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Posted by Sharyn Skeeter Apr 7, 2007 |
April 1: Augusta Baker (1911-1998) was a writer and storyteller from Baltimore who was a librarian at the New York Public Library for 35 years and who developed extensive bibliographies of African American-based children's literature.
April 1: Samuel R. Delany is a well-known, award-winning science fiction writer. Some of his novels are Nova, Dalgren, The Einstein Intersection, Hogg, and the Neveryon Series. He has also written short stories, essays, and he co-edited anthologies..
April 4: Maya Angelou is a poet, writer, and actress. Her memoirs—I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings and All God’s Children Need Traveling Shoes—are well known. She has been honored with many literary, theater, and academic awards. In 1993, she read her poetry at President Bill Clinton’s inauguration.
April 5: Booker T. Washington (1855-1915) was an ex-slave from Virginia who rose to prominence as an essayist, autobiographer, biographer, educator, and social thinker. His best known book is Up From Slavery.
April 9: Paule Marshall is a novelist and short story writer who highlights her Caribbean heritage in her work. She has been honored with many awards including a MacArthur Fellowship. Her novels include Brown Girl, Brownstones, Soul Clap Hands and Sing, Praisesong for the Widow, and The Fisher King.
April 13: Nella Larsen (1893-1964) was a well-known Harlem Renaissance novelist and short story writer. Her novels include Quicksand and Passing.
April 19: Etheridge Knight (1931-1991) was a Mississippi-born poet whose first poetry collection—Poems from Prison—was informed by his prison experience. He also published Belly Song and Other Poems, Born of a Woman, and The Essential Etheridge Knight.
April 23: Charles Johnson is a novelist, short story writer, essayist, journalist, screenwriter, and cartoonist. In 1990 he received the National Book Award for his novel Middle Passage and he is a recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship . His other novels include Faith and the Good Thing, Oxherding Tale, and Dreamer.
April 27: Jessie Redmon Fauset (1882-1961) was a Harlem Renaissance novelist, essayist, teacher, and poet. When she edited The Crisis magazine she encouraged such authors as Langston Hughes and Jean Toomer.
April 27: August Wilson (1945-2005) , acclaimed Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award winning playwright, who wrote a ten-play cycle which includes The Piano Lesson, Fences, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, Two Trains Running, and Radio Golf.
April 29: Yusef Komunyakaa won the Pulitzer Prize in 1995 for his poetry collection Neon Vernacular. He has published many volumes of poetry including Copacetic and Dien Cai Dau, which is based on his experiences in the war in Vietnam.