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: Quim Llenas/Cover/Getty Images (2006)
Sample of authors
Symons, Julian
Julian Gustave Symons was a British author and critic born in London, where he spent part of his life. His mother was English and his father a Russian Jew, a stern Victorian patriarch who gave his son little or no encouragement. Symons developed such a severe stammer in childhood that he was sent to a succession of state schools for retarded children. He was close to his twelve years older...
