The Most Famous Author From Every State

Books and the written word have endured since, well, forever, and some of the best of them have been authored right in the USA. While we may think of East coast staples like New York and Vermont and Massachusetts as places where all the notable authors reside, some of the most prolific writers were born in the places in between. Not all choices were obvious, so we used a blend of of notoriety, awards, critics opinion, lasting legacy, and our own highly relevant personal preference to choose ... so highly scientific, of course. See if your home state fave made the list...

Nelle Harper Lee was born in Monroeville Alabama. She is most famous for her 1960 novel To Kill A Mockingbird, which spawned both a 1962 film adaptation, a 2018 play, and a “sequel” (it was really an unreleased draft of To Kill a Mockingbird) Go Set a Watchman. Although she only ever published two books, she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2007 for her contributions to literature.

Sidney Huntington was born in 1915 in Hughes, Alaska. His mother was an Alaskan native of the caribou clan, and his father was a gold miner who came to live in Alaska in the early 1900s. His life was immortalized in the autobiography Shadows in the Koyukuk, which he co-authored with Jim Rearden. Although he had limited formal education (he stopped schooling after 3rd grade), Huntington learned through reading, and dedicated most of his life to championing and promoting education in rural Alaska. He died in 2015, at 100 years old.

Although Stephanie Meyer was born in Connecticut, she was raised and spent her formative years in Phoenix, Arizona, even meeting her husband there as a child, and raising their own children in Arizona. In the first Twilight book, main character Isabella Swan actually moves from Phoenix to the town of Forks, Washington. Twilight was a pop culture phenomenon, spawning 5 films, a novella, a gender-bent anniversary rewrite, and Midnight Sun, the long awaited Twilight book told from love interest Edward Cullen’s point of view.

John Grisham was born in Jonesboro Arkansas, and dreamed of being a pro baseball player. He left those dreams behind to practice law after college, and was even elected to the State house of Representatives in 1983, where he served for 7 years. After overhearing a gruesome testimony from a rape victim, Grisham was inspired to write a novel exploring a what if scenarios, resulting in the best-selling A Time To Kill. Surprisingly, there wasn’t much interest in the story until he sold his second novel––The Firm––and the film rights to it. After two more bestsellers, there was renewed interest in his first, which was reprinted and became a bestseller and a blockbuster hit.

Born in Sacramento, California, Joan Didion's career started in the 60’s as a journalist and essayist. After winning a contest sponsored by Vogue during her senior year of college at UC, Berkeley, she was awarded a job at the magazine, and stayed there for 7 years as a copywriter and associate editor. Her first novel, Run, River, was actually inspired by her love and homesickness for California. She continued to write novels and essays after moving back to California, and is regarded as one of the premiere political and cultural writers of the 60’s and 70’s.

Ken Kesey was born in La Junta, Colorado. A countercultural figure, he participated in government studies involving LSD and mescaline, and after his move to California full time, threw parties that intertwined mass media performances with hallucinogenic drugs. He is most famous for his work One flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, which was written after working the night shift at a veterans hospital. Many of the patients were under the same drugs he had used as part of his volunteering experiments, and after spending time with them, he believed that they weren’t insane, just unwilling or unable to participate in the rigidly constructed societal norms.

Suzanne Collins was born in Hartford, Connecticut, but as a military brat, she spent most of her childhood moving along the east coast. Her career began not with novels, but as a writer for tv, including some of our Nickelodeon favorites like Clarissa Explains it All, Little Bear and Oswald. She then started writing children's middle-grade books, including the epic fantasy series The Underland Chronicles. She received mainstream success and fame with 2008’s The Hunger Games, which was inspired by the Greek Myth of Theseus and the Minotaur and her father’s own career in the Air Force.

Colleen Faulkner was born in Delaware to famous author mom Judith E. French. Her family has lived in rural Delaware for 350 years, and both Colleen and her mom jointly run the farm that's been passed down for generations. She wrote her first novel at just 23 years old, and since then, has penned over 100 books in various genres, with some published under pseudonyms. She was presented with the Diamond Award for literary excellence in her home state of Delaware.

Literary Icon, Harlem Renaissance writer, and anthropologist Zora Neale Hurston was born in Alabama, but was raised in Eatonville, Florida, one of the first all-Black towns incorporated in the US. Eatonville became a frequent “character” in her stories, including her most known novel Their Eyes Were Watching God. She is considered one of the most central writers of The Harlem Renaissance, but most of her work did not gain public attention until after her death.

Alice Walker was born in Eatonton, Georgia. Her writing career was sparked by her experiences with abortion and suicide ideation, and the poetry penned during that time was published in her first work, Once. After becoming an editor of Ms. Magazine, she penned the article In Search of Zora Neale Hurston, which revived interest in Hurston's work and scholarship. Walker’s most famous novel, The Color Purple was written in 1982, and was adapted into a critically acclaimed movie directed by Steven Spielberg in 1985, and a Tony award winning musical in 2005. Walker is also known for coining the term Womanist––a Black or woman of color feminist––in her collection In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens.

Mliton Murayama was born Maui, Hawaii, and moved to a sugarcane plantation camp at Pu’ukoli’i with his family at age 12. His experiences here would inspire his future novels, including his first novel All I Asking For is My Body. Though not well received when first published, it won the American Book Award of the Before Columbus Foundation in 1980, and upon reprint received critical acclaim and became a cult classic. Murayama received the Hawai’i Award for Literature in 1991

Vardis Fisher was born in Annis, Idaho, and wrote popular historical novels about the Old West. He is most known for his novel Children of God, which won the Harper Prize and focused on the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. His novel Mountain Man was adapted into the 1972 film Jeremiah Johnson.

A multi-hyphenate essayist, novelist, poet, short story writer and performer, Sandra Cisneros was born in Chicago, Illinois. Her early experiences growing up in a poor neighborhood as the only daughter in a family of seven, inspired much of her work, including her famous first novel, The House on Mango Street. She has several honorary doctorates, won the PEN/Nabokov Award for international literature, and was awarded the National Medal of the Arts by President Obama in 2016.

Kurt Vonnegut was born and raised in Indianapolis, Indiana. He attended Cornell University, but later dropped up to join World War II. Captured by Germans during the Battle of the Bulge and interned at Dresden, he survived the Allied bombing by hiding in a meat locker of the slaughterhouse where he was being kept. After the war, he married, and published his first novel in 1952. It was not commercially successful, and though he published several novels over the 15+ years that were well regarded, it wasn’t until his sixth novel in 1969, Slaughterhouse Five, that he became a bestseller and a household name. Loosely based on his own experiences during WWII, the anti-war overtones resonated with Americans during the ongoing protests of the Vietnam War.

Bill Bryson was born and raised in Des Moines, Iowa, and is known for his travel and science writing He came into prominence after moving to Great Britain as an adult and publishing Notes from a Small Island in 1995, a humorous exploration of Britain that interweaved descriptions of landscapes with anecdotes from his everyday encounters with the people of Britain. This was eventually turned into a television series. He received worldwide recognition with his book A Short History of Nearly Everything, a popular science book that was praised for its funny and accessible communication of harder or little known areas of science.

William Inge was born in Independence, Kansas. After getting his BA from the University of Kansas, he worked in a variety of jobs in the area before completing his Master’s at George Peabody College for Teachers. Moving to Missouri for a teaching job, Inge’s career began as a drama critic in 1943, and he wrote his first play Farther Off from Heaven in 1947. Over the course of his career, he earned the title of “Playwright of the Midwest”– both because of his upbringing and his frequent uses of small town life and settings rooted in the Midwest. He is most known for his play Come Back Sheba, which won Tonys for its leading actors (and was adapted into a Oscar winning film) as well as Picnic, which earned him a Pulitzer.

Marsha Norman was born in Louisville, Kentucky, and is the second playwright on our list. She is known for writing the book and lyrics for Broadway musical The Secret Garden (which won her a Tony),and the libretto for the musical The Color Purple.

Of course the queen of gothic fiction would be from the most magical of all the states, Louisiana. Anne Rice was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, and spent her youth and formative years there before moving to Texas as a teen. Anne’s given name is actually Howard Allen Frances O’Brien, named after her father, but she has gone by Anne since elementary school, and legally changed her name in 1947. Anne’s first novel is also one of her most well known; Interview with a Vampire was written while Anne was still grieving the loss of her first daughter to leukemia. Even though initial reviews were bad, it would go on to be an international bestseller and spawn multiple prequels, sequels and a movie franchise.

King of Horror Stephen King was born in Portland, Maine. He moved around a lot during his youth after the divorce of his parents, but settled in Durham, Maine at age 11. The state of his childhood would go on to feature prominently in his catalog, most notably in novels Carrie, It, and The Stand. He notes that the inspiration for his fascination with horror and the supernatural started after browsing through an attic and discovering a collection of H.P. Lovecraft short stories, which belonged to his dad. He stated in an interview that he’d found home when he read that book, and it set him on the path to becoming a novelist.

Nora Roberts, bestselling author of over 200 novels, was born in Silver Springs, Maryland. She settled in Keedysville, Maryland after her first marriage, and her career was born during the famous blizzard of 1979 in that very town. Roberts is known for both her romance series and single title works, with books like Playing the Odds (MacGregor Series) and Montana Sky becoming instant bestsellers. Roberts was also interested in writing romantic suspense, thrillers, and procedurals, but her publishers were worried she would alienate her base. Determined, she adopted a second pseudonym in 1992 (Nora Roberts being a shortened form of her first name), and started releasing works under the moniker J.D. Robb as well.

Nathaniel Hawthorne is a native of Salem, Massachusetts. Known for his dark romantic literature with themes of morality, religion, and the nature of women, he seemed to pull directly from the magic and history of Salem (his uncle was a Salem witch trial judge––one who never regretted his involvement!). He is most known for his novel, The Scarlet Letter, but has also written The House of The Seven Gables and The Blithedale Romance.

Terry McMillan was born in Port Huron, Michigan. She published her first novel, Mama, at 36. There was limited promotion of the title, and unsatisfied with her publisher’s marketing efforts, Terry took matters into her own hand by writing booksellers directly, with a special focus on Black bookstores. Her efforts helped the book sell out of it’s initial printing and launched her career. McMillan received national acclaim and success with her third work, Waiting to Exhale, which was a NYT bestseller, sold over 3 million copies, and was adapted into a film directed by forest Whitaker and starred Angela Bassett, Loretta Devine, Whitney Houston, and Lela Rochon. How Stella Got her Groove Back, another bestseller of hers, was also adapted into a film and starred Waiting to Exhale alum Angela Bassett.

F. Scott Fitzgerald was born in St. Paul Minnesota to an upper middle class family. He was raised primarily in NYC, and after settling there after the army, he wrote his first novel, This Side of Paradise. It was this novel that won him the hand of his wife Zelda, the woman who inspired his fourth novel, The Great Gatsby. While writers like T.S Eliot and Edith Warton praised the book, it was considered a flop by critics and audiences. He only received $5 in royalties for the novel. Though he continued to write after, The Great Depression cast his books in an unfavorable light–seen as too excessive and materialistic– and by the time of his death, his work was mostly unknown to general readers. Fitzgerald experienced a revival after a friend published his 5th unfinished novel and included The Great Gatsby as part of the package .By 1960, it had become a critical part of the classic 20th century fiction, and soon after became a reading staple in schools across America.

Richard Wright was born on a Plantation in Roxie, Mississippi. He moved around a lot when he was younger, and by the age of 12, had not yet completed a single year of formal education. After settling in Jackson, Mississippi with his grandparents, he was finally able to go to school at the age of 13. At 15 he published his first story in the local Black newspaper. Wright’s family joined the Great Migration and moved to Chicago when he was 18, but growing up in the Jim Crow south made a lasting impression. He gained national attention for his collection of short stories, Uncle Tom’s Children when he was 30 years old. His first full length novel Native Son was selected by Book of the Month––its first selection by a Black author––and helped to solidify Wright’s place in American classic literature.

Maya Angelou was borne in St. Louis, Missouri. She is one of the most enduring voices of our time, with her poetry, memoirs, and activism spanning over 50 years and inspiring an entire generation of writers. Most of her life is chronicled in her 7 memoirs, with her first, I Know Why The Cage Bird Sings, becoming an immediate bestseller and leading her into international recognition and acclaim.

Maile Meloy was born in Helena, Montana and is an editorial, short story, and tv writer. Her work has been featured in The New Yorker and The New York Times, and her first collection of short stories, Half in Love won her a PEN/Malamud Award. She was listed in Granta’s 21 Best Young American Novelists in 2007, and most recently, is a writer on the Netflix series, The Society.

Nicholas Sparks was born in Omaha, Nebraska, but moved around a lot as his father pursued graduate studies. Nicholas started writing at his mother’s urging, who thought he was bored and needed something to do.His first two works––The Passing and Royal Murders––were never published. His third novel was written in his spare time while working sales, and his agent discovered it on his agency’s slush pile. She managed to secure Sparks a 1 million advance for the book, which was called, The Notebook. Since his explosive entrance, Nicholas has written numerous books, including 15 bestsellers, a number of which have been adapted to film.

Born in Yerington, Nevada, Nevada Barr was actually not named for her home state, but for a character in one of her father’s favorite books. She is best known for creating the Anna Pigeon series, and it’s debut title Track of the Cat won the Agatha Award for Best First novel.

Born in Exeter, New Hampshire, to a teacher and textbook writer father and a church organist mother. He was super religious as a child, but when silenced for asking questions about the differing information he was getting in science class and church, began moving away from organized religion. As an adult, he taught at his alma mater while dabbling in writing, co-authoring a book with his wife under a pseudonym. He quit teaching to write full time in 1996, and released his first novel Digital Fortress in 1998. Brown then wrote Angels and Demons, which was the first to feature his lead character Robert Langdon. While his first few novels had little success, his fourth, The Da Vinci Code, became a bestseller and is considered one of the most popular books of all time. It was acquired for a series of films starring Tom Hanks, and also boosted the sales of his first 3 novels.

George R R Martin was born in Bayonne, New Jersey. His writing career started with convincing another person to write –– English professor George Guthridge, who notoriously despised Sci-fi and fantasy. Martin persuaded him to give speculative fiction a second look, and Guthridge even made an effort to write it himself; he was rewarded with a finalist nom for the Hugo and Nebula Awards. In turn, Guthridge was able to help Martin find a job at Clark University, since his short stories weren’t making enough money for him to live off of. He worked in tv for a while, but was so frustrated with the limitations of it that he returned to novels, and in 1991, penned A Song of Ice and Fire. The book, and the subsequent The Game of Thrones series novels were explosive, becoming international bestsellers, and spawning an HBO adaptation. The series would go on to win numerous awards, and in turns delight and frustrate fans of both the book series and the tv adaptation. With two more novels planned in the series, people are still waiting for him to conclude the story.

Rudolfo Anaya was born in Pastura, New Mexico, and raised in Santa Rosa, New Mexico. His best known work, Bless Me, Ultima took almost a decade to be completed and published. He faced some difficulty getting publishers to take it on, as the book blended English and Spanish language, and focused on the Chicano experience. After being published by an independent house in 1972, it went on to sell over 300,00 copies, and had a huge impact on emerging Latino writers. Today, Anaya is considered one of the founders of contemporary Chicano literature.

Though he spent much of his adult life in France, James Baldwin was a native New Yorker, born in Harlem in 1924 at the height of the Harlem Renaissance. His work spans genres and mediums; he is known as a prolific playwright, essayist, activist, poet and novelist. Baldwin’s work frequently explores themes of masculinity, sexuality, race, and class, and his characters find themselves exploring ostracism, desire for social capital, and self-acceptance. Harlem and his own experiences growing up there were also made known in his work, his harassment from racist police officers at the age of 10 was documented in his essays, and his birthday and father’s death coinciding with the Harlem riot of 1943 was portrayed in the beginning of his Notes of a Native Son essay. He is most known for his earlier works, including Go Tell it On a Mountain, Notes of a Native Son, Giovanni’s Room, and The Fire Next Time.

Thomas Wolfe was born in Asheville, North Carolina. Considered a genius, he was enrolled in UNC Chapel hill at 15, and went on to major in playwriting at Harvard. He is most known for his work Look Homeward, Angel, a fiction novel loosely based on his life in North Carolina. There was a ton of controversy upon its release, as many of his characters could be tied back to Asheville residents. As a result, he exiled himself from his hometown for many years. Since his death, he has been seen as one of the literary giants of the 20th century.

Louise Erdrich was born in Minnesota, but moved to North Dakota, where her parents taught at a boarding school in Wahpeton. While attending Dartmouth, she met Michael Dorris, an anthropologist and then director of the new Native American Studies program. His class inspired her to look further into her own ancestry, and to use her life as inspiration for her literary work. Dorris became a frequent collaborative partner on short stories after her graduation, and their writing partnership turned into a romantic relationship later in life. Erdrich has won numerous literary awards, including the American Academy of Poets Prize, National Book Critics Circle Award for Love Medicine, and a lifetime achievement award from the Native Writers’ Circle of the Americas.

Prolific writer Toni Morrison was born Chloe Anthony Wolford Morrison in Lorain, Ohio. She received her bachelors from Howard University, her Masters from Cornell, and started her career as the first Black editor in fiction at Random House. She ushered in a new generation of Black writers, including Toni Cade Bambara, Angela Davis, and Gayle Jones. Toni’s own writing began informally as part of a group of writers and poets, and her first novel, The Bluest Eye, was developed during this time. Though critically lauded, her first few novels were modest in sales, including Sula, Song of Solomon, and Tar Baby. It was not until 1987, when she published ‘Beloved’, that Morrison became a household name and her works a critical success; Beloved spent 25 weeks on the bestseller lists, became a movie in 1998, and won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. When Oprah chose Toni’s first novel for her newly launched book club, it went on to sell an additional 800,000 copies. Since then, Toni has published over a dozen works, won the Nobel Prize in Literature, and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Barack Obama in 2016.

Ralph Ellison was born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Ellison had a love for the trumpet, and was admitted to the Tuskegee Institute to play in their orchestra. Unfortunately, Ellison, who grew up poor, found the class dynamics at the all Black university to be just as prevalent as the white institutions of which he knew of, and his outsider position planted the seeds of what would become his most famous work, Invisible Man. Even though Ellison was ultimately unsatisfied with the book itself, it was considered the most important novel since WWII and won the National Book Award prize for fiction.

Beverly Cleary was born in McMinnville Oregon, and got her start as a children’s librarian after college. She empathized with the children who would visit; they often felt as if they could not find books with characters they could identify with. She started writing children’s books with them in mind. Most of her books are based on her own childhood experiences in Oregon, the children in her neighborhood she grew up with and the children she met while working as a librarian. Cleary is considered one of America’s most successful living authors, with 91 million of her books being sold internationally since 1950. Her most famous characters included Ramona and Beezus Quimby, and their story was even adapted into a film. Beverly has been the recipient of numerous awards and honors, including the National Book Award for Ramona and Her Mother, The Newbery Medal for Dear Mr. Henshaw, and several statues of her most famous characters which have been erected in Portland.

Omar Tyree was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Originally, he had plans to become a pharmacist like his mother, but after switching schools and majors, graduated in 1991 with a degree in Print Journalism from Howard University. Tyree worked as an editor for The Capital Spotlight and Chief reporter for News Dimensions, a Black-owned, weekly newspaper. He started writing shortly after, and has since published more than 20 books, made the NYT Bestseller list, and won a NAACP Image Award for Body of Work in Urban Fiction.

Cormac McCarthy was born in Providence Rhode Island, and is known for his multi-hyphenate career; playwright, novelist, short-story writer, and screenwriter. His genres span from southern-gothic to post-apocalyptic, and he is recognizable by his unique writing style. Widely regarded as one of America’s great contemporary writers, he is widely known for his bestselling works No Country for Old Men, The Road, and his magnum opus, Blood Meridian.

eggy Parish was born in Manning, South Carolina and spent her earlier adulthood working as a teacher––most notably at the Dalton School in Manhattan. It was during this time she authored her first children's book. Most known for her beloved character Amelia Bedelia, she has written over 30 books which have sold 7+ million copies during her time.

Judith A Jance was born in Watertown, South Dakota, and attributes her writing career to her second grade teacher introducing her to Frank Baum’s Wizard of Oz series. However, due to sexism at the university she attended, she was not entered into the writing program she wanted, and instead married a man who was able to be admitted. She put her writing dreams on hold while being a wife and mother, but after a decade, a divorce, and an unfulfilling career in insurance, she started to write. Her first book was never published, but her second, Until Proven Guilty, was a bestseller. She chose J.A. Jance as a pen name under the direction of her publisher, who thought her being a woman would result in bad sales considering her male detective main character and thriller content. Since her first novel, Jance has gone on to write over 150 fiction novels, many of the bestsellers.

Eric Jerome Dickey was born and raised in Memphis, Tennessee. He graduated from Memphis State , earning a degree in Computer System Technology and moved to LA to pursue a career in engineering. Wanting to shift to comedy and acting, Dickey started writing scripts for his comedy act, and then transitioned to short stories. He finally found his groove with novels’; he debuted in 1997 with Sister Sister, and became a NYT bestselling author with his third novel Milk in My Coffee.He has gone on to write over two dozen novels, and is also the author of a six issue Marvel miniseries featuring Storm and the Black Panther.

Larry McMurtry was born in Archer City, Texas, and is known for his work being set in the Old West or contemporary Texas. He lived in a house with no books, but remembers that stories were told by family every night on the front porch. It wasn’t until WWII that he began to read. His cousin left him exactly 19 books before he enlisted, and the adventure tales were consumed over and over. McMurtry is known for his Pulitzer Prize winning novel Lonesome Dove, which was adapted into a tv miniseries that earned seven Emmys. He also wrote Horseman, Pass By, The Last Picture Show, and Terms of Endearment, which were all bestsellers, all adapted into films, and all together won 10 Oscars. Most recently, he worked with Diana Ossana to write the adapted screenplay for Brokeback Mountain, and co wrote with Ossana the screenplay Good Joe Bell.

Shannon Hale was born in Salt Lake City, Utah and began dabbling in the arts very early; she created plays for her and her friends to act out as children, and began writing fantasy books at age 10. By the fourth grade, she had solidified writing as her career of choice. She attended the university of Utah for her bachelors, and then her masters in Creative Writing from the University of Montana. Her first published novel, The Goose Girl, was developed while in her graduate writing program, and was awarded the Josette Frank Award for fiction. Her third novel Princess Academy was a New York Times Bestseller and received the Newbery Honor. Her first foray into adult works was Austenland, which was adapted for film and premiered at Sundance. Stephanie Meyer, author of the Twilight series, produced the film.

Ralph Nading Hill was born and raised in Burlington, Vermont, and is considered an authority on the state. He spent most of his life as an editor for The Vermont Life Magazine, and is most known for his book Contrary Country: A Chronicle of Vermont.

Cleo Virgina Andrews was born in Portsmouth, Virginia. As a teen, Virginia suffered a fall that resulted in severe back injuries, and even with surgery required her to use crutches and a wheelchair for most of her life. Andrews was a gifted artist, and after her injuries, completed distance education to become a commercial artist and illustrator. Late in life, she began writing and started out as a science fiction novelist. She pivoted, and in 1975, completed the manuscript for a noble she called Flowers in the Attic. The novel was an instant success upon publication in 1979, and each year thereafter until her death, Andrews published a novel. She is known for her themes of rags-to-riches, gothic horror, family saga, and forbidden love. Flowers in the Attic remains one of her bestselling titles, selling over 40 million copies worldwide and spawning both a 1987 and 2014 film adaptation.

Though born in California, Hannah was raised in both the Pacific Northwest and Alaska, and these states feature prominently in her writing. After graduating from the University of Washington., she went to law school and practiced law in Puget before becoming a full time writer. Though her writing career began in 1991, she did not reach mainstream success until her novel Firefly Lane was published in 2008. Hannah is most known for her novels The Nightingale and The Great Alone, the former which has been published in over 43 languages. Both novels have been optioned for film.

Cynthia Rylant was born in Hopewell, West Virginia, and moved to Cool Ridge, West Virginia after her parents separation. Her economic situation prevented her from having access to children's books in her youth, instead relying on comics and the outdoors for entertainment. She went on to college, earning degrees from Morris Harvey College and Marshall University. She worked as a librarian and taught english part time at her alma mater while writing her first book, When I was Young in the Mountain. The picture book only took her an hour to complete, but won her an American Book Award and Caldecott Honor Book. Since then she’s written more than 100 children's books, which range from picture books and novels to non-fiction and poetry. She’s has an additional Caldecott book, and has also won a Newbery Medal for her novel Missing May.

Laura Ingalls Wilder was born in Pepin Country, Wisconsin, and is known for her Little House on the Prairie series, a fictionalized account of her childhood with her pioneer family. The books were written between 1932 and 1943, when Laura was in her mid sixties and experiencing financial hardship during The Great Depression and the deaths of her mother and older sister. The books were instant success; they have continued to print, have been translated into 40 other languages, and even spawned a nine season television series and a tv movie in the 70s.

Patricia Maclachlan was born in Cheyenne, Wyoming, and is most known for her Witting Family series, which consisted of 5 books. The first book in the series, Sarah, Plain and Tall, was adapted into a TV movie and won the Newbery Medal in 1986. Patricia has always been fascinated with children's attachment to certain places in their youth, and she sought to explore that concept further with her writing.