Name__________________            Date__________   Period_______


Miss Manor   Authors of the Past and Present (Written Assignment)

We have studied several different authors in class.  Pick one author from the
list provided and research his/her life and write a paper about that author.  
This assignment will count for your midterm exam (2 test grades).  This 
assignment is due on ______________.  

You will have to research the life of the person that you have selected.  You
will have to research the life of the author and include the following:

a)	Where and when they were born.
b)	What his/her education was like.  Did they have a formal education?  
Were they self-taught?  What was their highest level of formal education?  
What schools did they attend?
c)	What subjects/themes did/do they write about?
d)	Do they write prose or poetry?
e)	If the author is a poet, what form do they use? (Sonnet, haiku, free 
verse, etc.)
f)	If the author writes prose, do they write short stories, plays or 
novels?
g)	What genre does the author write? (Horror, science fiction, mystery, 
romance, etc.)
h)	What are some of the author’s most famous works?
i)	Is there something different about this person’s style of writing? 
j)	Was the author published in their lifetime or after they died?  If they 
were published in their lifetime, how old were they when they were first 
published?  If they were not published in their lifetime, when did they get 
published?
k)	What are his/her achievements and accomplishments?  Did this person win 
any awards for their writing?  If they won awards for their writing you should 
include what type of award and the year that they won the award.

You will have to have at least two sources for this paper.  If you choose to 
use the internet, you must include a printout of the website with your 
final paper.
Remember, if you are taking a quote directly from a source you need to put it 
in quotation marks and cite the source.  Ex. - “Shakespeare was born on April 
16th, 1564 and he died on the very same day in the year 1616” (author’s last 
name, page number).

The following are acceptable sources:
·	Internet 
·	Books (biographies, autobiographies, books of criticism, etc.)
·	Encyclopedia articles
·	Magazine/Newspaper articles

You will need to put a works cited page at the end of your paper.  We will go 
over what needs to go on a works cited page in class.









Page Two


Authors of the Past and Present

1.  J. K. Rowling		
2.  Anne Frank		
3.  Lois Lowry
4.  JRR Tolkien			
5.  Kurt Vonnegut		
6.  August Wilson		
7.  E. E. Cummings	
8.  Elie Wiesel		
9.  Robert Cormier		
10. Laura Ingalls Wilder		
11. S.E. Hinton		
12. Robert Frost	
13. Shel Silverstein		
14. V. C. Andrews		
15. C.S. Lewis		
16. Dorothy Parker		
17. Harper Lee
18. Langston Hughes
19. Sylvia Plath	
20. Amy Tan
21. Erica Jong
22. Walt Whitman
23. Paul Zindel	
24. Mark Twain
25. Stephen King
26. William Shakespeare
27. Gary Paulsen
28. John Steinbeck	
29. Ray Bradbury
30  Judy Blume
31. William Carlos Williams
32. Allen Ginsberg