Photo: David Livingston/Getty Images (2009)
Sample of authors
Koontz, Dean R.
Dean Ray Koontz is an American author of suspense literature. He was born in Everett, Pennsylvania, and grew up in a dysfunctional family with a violent, alcoholic father and a suppressed mother. He found comfort in reading and watching movies, and he began to write short stories, which he sold to friends and relatives when he was eight years old. He attended Shippensburg State College (now...
Photo: Ulla Montan
Sample of authors
Doctorow, E.L.
American author of Russian-Jewish descent who grew up in the Bronx where his father owned a record store and his mother was a pianist. He was named Edgar after Edgar Allan Poe. Doctorow read philosophy at Kenyon College, Ohio, graduating in 1952. He met his wife, Helen Esther Setzer, during his year at Columbia University. The couple was married in 1954 in occupied Germany where Doctorow served...
