Noah Gordon

American writer, was born into a family of Jewish origin, on November 11, 1926, in the town of Worcester (Massachusetts).

 After a first attempt to study Medicine, he graduated in Journalism and Letters at Boston University. He worked for a time as a freelance journalist and also worked for various publications, including the Worcester Telegram and the Boston Herald. He was also an editor and columnist for some medical journals, such as Psychiatric Opinion or the Journal of Abdominal Surgery.

 Noah Gordon is the author of several novels that have become true best-sellers in literature, which have been translated into multiple languages ​​and have achieved a permanent position on bookstore shelves. His first published novel was "The Rabbi" and dates from 1965, although his best-known work is "The Doctor" (published for the first time in 1986 and made into a film in 2013), the first part of a trilogy that is completed with "Shaman " and "Doctor Cole."

CURIOSITIES:

- Noah Gordon was called up to the US Army to participate in World War II. He performed administrative services in San Francisco.

-His parents wanted him to become a doctor, and he tried to please them at first; he even attended Boston University to study medicine. However, his preference was more for Journalism, a career that he finally opted for. However, he always kept his interest in medicine and science alive.

 He passed away on November 22, 2021.

MAIN WORKS:

- The Jerusalem Diamond

- Dr. Cole

- The cellar

- The Death Committee

- The Rabbi

- Shaman

- The doctor

Retrieved from: https://trabalibros.com/autores/noah-gordon-biography

Judy Sierra

Judy Sierra grew up in a creative, book loving family. Her father was a photographer and her mother was an elementary school librarian. As her parents read books aloud to her, Judy fell madly in love with poetry, beginning with Mother Goose. By third grade she was writing school reports in rhyme.

 When Judy was seven, her father built a puppet stage and her mother helped her make puppets to perform a folktale, "The Three Wishes." Judy and her cousin charged kids twenty-five cents to see their shows and learned that it is possible to make money in the arts.

 Artists often need day jobs, so Judy went to college for degrees in French Literature and Library Science. She combined library work with a career as a puppeteer, performing on television at schools, museums, libraries and Renaissance fairs. As an artist-in-the-schools, she taught children how to create their own puppets and shows.

Judy studied Folklore and Mythology at UCLA and earned a Ph.D. She wrote her first picture books while she was a graduate student, retelling some of the folktales she found during her research.

 Over the years, Judy Sierra has worked with exceptional editors and illustrators to create more than 35 books for children. These books have received awards including the Aesop Prize from the American Folklore Society and the E.B. White Read-Aloud Award from the Association of Booksellers for Children. Four of her books were named Notables by the American Library Association, and two—Antarctic Antics and Wild About Books—were on the New York Times picture book bestsellers list.

Judy lives and writes in Portland, Oregon.

Interview

 How did you begin writing children's books?

I never considered writing children's books until I attended a talk by picture book author and illustrator Uri Shulevitz. He said that a picture book is like a small theater. I thought to myself, "I know a whole lot about small theaters—puppet theaters. I should write a picture book!" I would think of each one as a puppet show. The words would be the script, and the page turns would be the entrances and exits of characters and the changes of scene.

 I took classes in writing for children and within a year I'd sold my first manuscript, The Elephant's Wrestling Match, illustrated by Brian Pinkney.

Is it fun being a children's author?

Many parts of being a children's author are very enjoyable. For example, even though I'm a shy person, I love standing on stage and sharing my books to a room full of teachers or a school auditorium filled with kids. And of course, signing a book contract or winning a book award are thrilling. On the other hand, creating a book that kids will love can be a long and difficult process.

How do you get your ideas?

Ideas for books arrive in different ways. Sometimes I give myself a challenge, for example, I wondered if I could I write a funny, exciting story about a rather boring subject, good manners. That challenge resulted in Mind Your Manners, B.B. Wolf, illustrated by J. Otto Seibold.

The idea for my bestselling book, Wild About Books, came from a poster I saw at a library that showed wild animals reading books. "How did they learn to read?" I asked myself. "And where did they get all those books?" I chose the title and wrote it in my idea notebook, but it took me five years to come up with just the right story.

What were your favorite books as a child?

As a preschooler, my favorite book was The Golden Book of Poetry. I asked to hear the poems so often that I knew everyone by heart long before I could read.

Later on, I read and re-read the Oz books and Nancy Drew mysteries. I devoured the books in the school library and the public library. My favorite of all favorites was The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis.

Which picture books inspired you as a writer?

I was inspired by the picture books that made me a read-aloud star when I worked at the public library. Some favorites were Maurice Sendak's Pierre, and Alexander and the No Good, Very Bad Day by Judith Viorst, and the folktale picture books of Gerald McDermott and Ashley Bryan.

What are you working on now?

I am finishing up a book about how to write rhyming picture books.

https://www.judysierra.net/bio.htm

Beatrix Potter, the writer of one of the most beloved children’s book of all time, The Tale of Peter Rabbit (1902), was a woman of immense talent, indefatigable spirit, and generous heart.  Helen Beatrix, the eldest of the two children of Rupert and Helen (Leech) Potter, was born on 28 July 1866 at 2 Bolton Gardens, South Kensington, London.  Although Beatrix and her brother, Walter Bertram (1872-1918), grew up in London, both were deeply influenced by long family holidays in the countryside, first in Scotland and later in the English Lake District, and by their northern roots. As was the custom in families of her class, Beatrix was educated at home by several governesses.  An eager student of languages and literature, she grew up loving classic folk and fairy tales, rhymes and riddles.  Her talent for drawing and painting was discovered early and encouraged.  She drew her own versions of such stories as Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, and Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Beatrix also wrote imaginatively about her pets. She and Bertram kept a number of much-loved and intensely observed animals in their schoolroom. In addition to rabbits, a hedgehog, some mice and bats, they had collections of insects – all identified and properly mounted – and all were drawn with the same accuracy that would later mark Beatrix as a distinguished naturalist. Early family holidays were spent at Dalguise, a country house in Perthshire, Scotland. Allowed freedom to explore, Beatrix honed her ability to observe the details of the natural world. In 1882 the Potters began taking their holidays in the Lake District. Country life appealed deeply to Potter and years later she made her home there and produced some of her finest work. 

From 1881 to 1897 Potter kept a Journal in which she recorded her activities, as well as opinions about society, art and current events. It was written in a code she invented herself, which was not deciphered until 1958. In her sketchbook Beatrix practised observation by drawing; in her Journal she practised it by writing. Both skills were paramount to the success of her books for children.

In 1905 Beatrix and Norman Warne became unofficially engaged but Potter’s parents objected to her engagement because the publisher was ‘in trade’. Sadly, Norman died of leukaemia only a month later. But Beatrix proceeded with plans to buy Hill Top Farm, a small working farm in Near Sawrey, a Lake District village then in Lancashire. The farm became her sanctuary, a place where she could come to paint and write as well as learn farm management. Some of her best books, such as The Tale of Tom Kitten (1907), The Tale of Jemima Puddle-Duck (1908) and The Tale of Samuel Whiskers (1908), reflect her delight in the old farmhouse and in farming life.

Four years later, in 1909, Beatrix purchased Castle Farm, a second property in Sawrey just across the road from Hill Top. Her ambition to own land in the Lake District and to preserve it from development was encouraged by William Heelis, a local solicitor.

In 1913, at the age of forty-seven, Beatrix Potter married Heelis and moved into Castle Cottage on Castle Farm. Becoming deeply involved in the community, she served on committees to improve rural living, opposed hydroplanes on Lake Windermere, founded a nursing trust to improve local health care, and developed a passion for breeding and raising Herdwick sheep. In 1923 she bought Troutbeck Park, an enormous but disease-ridden sheep farm which she restored to agricultural health. She became one of the most admired Herdwick breeders in the region and won prizes at all the local shows. The Heelises were also enthusiastic supporters of land conservation and early benefactors of the National Trust. In 1930 Beatrix became de facto land agent for the Trust, managing some of their farms, as well as her own, over a vast section of the Lake District.

Beatrix continued to write, her diminished eyesight and her enthusiasm for farming meant that The Tale of Little Pig Robinson, published in 1930, was the last little book. In 1926 she had also published a longer book, The Fairy Caravan, in the United States, but because she thought it too autobiographical it did not appear commercially in England until nine years after her death.

Beatrix Potter Heelis died on 22 December 1943. She bequeathed fifteen farms and over 4,000 acres to the National Trust – a gift which protected and conserved the unique Lake District countryside. Her books, her art, her Herdwick sheep and her indomitable spirit are all part of her enormous legacy.

Information retrieved from: https://beatrixpottersociety.org.uk/about-beatrix/

Susan Orlean (born October 31, 1955) is a journalist and bestselling author of The Orchid Thief and The Library Book. She has been a staff writer for The New Yorker since 1992, and has contributed articles to many magazines including Vogue, Rolling Stone, Esquire, and Outside. She is best known as the author of the 1998 book The Orchid Thief, which was adapted into the film Adaptation (2002). 

Orlean was raised in Shaker Heights, Ohio, the daughter of Edith and Arthur Orlean (1915–2007). She has a sister and a brother. Her family is Jewish. Her mother's family is from Hungary and her father's family from Poland. Her father was an attorney and businessman.

She graduated from the University of Michigan with honors in 1976, studying literature and history. After college she moved to Portland, Oregon, and was planning on going to law school, when she began writing for the Willamette Week. She married lawyer Peter Sistrom in 1983, and they divorced after 16 years of marriage. She was introduced by a friend to author and businessman John Gillespie, whom she married in 2001, and she gave birth to their son Austin in 2004.

She later went on to publish stories in Rolling Stone, Esquire, Vogue, Outside and Spy. In 1982, she moved to Boston and became a staff writer for the Boston Phoenix and later a regular contributor to the Boston Globe Sunday Magazine. Her first book, Saturday Night, was published in 1990, shortly after she moved to New York and began writing for The New Yorker magazine. She started contributing to The New Yorker in 1987 and became a staff writer in 1992.

Orlean authored the book The Orchid Thief, a profile of Florida orchid grower, breeder and collector John Laroche. The book formed the basis of Charlie Kaufman's script for the Spike Jonze film Adaptation. Orlean was, in effect, made into a fictional character. The movie portrayed her as becoming Laroche's lover and partner in a drug production operation, in which orchids were processed into a psychoactive substance. She also wrote the Women's Outside article "Life's Swell", published in 1998. That article, a feature on a group of young surfer girls in Maui, was the basis of the film Blue Crush.

In 1999, she co-wrote The Skinny: What Every Skinny Woman Knows About Dieting (And Won't Tell You!) under her married name, Susan Sistrom. Her previously published magazine stories have been compiled in two collections, The Bullfighter Checks Her Makeup: My Encounters with Extraordinary People and My Kind of Place: Travel Stories from a Woman Who's Been Everywhere. She also served as editor for Best American Essays 2005 and Best American Travel Writing 2007. She contributed the Ohio chapter in State By State (2008), and in 2011 she published a biographical history of the dog actor Rin Tin Tin titled Rin Tin Tin: The Life and the Legend.

When her son Austin had an assignment to interview a city employee, he chose a librarian and together they visited the Studio City branch of the Los Angeles Public Library system which reignited her own childhood passion for libraries. After an immersive project involving three years of research and two years of writing on the 1986 fire at the Los Angeles Central Library, The Library Book was released in October 2018. The book uses the context of the April 1986 fire to explore the role of the public library, who uses them, and the void created if they are lost. 

Awards and honors

Orlean was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University in 2004. She received an honorary Doctor of Human Letters degree from the University of Michigan at the spring commencement ceremony in 2012. She was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2014 in the "General Nonfiction" field of study. Orlean was the winner of the 7th Annual Shorty Awards in the Author category, which honors the best social and digital media.

Stewart was born in London in 1955. His family lived first in Muswell Hill, North London, and later in Morden, South London, where he went to school. His favorite subject at school was English and he hated Mathematics. When Stewart left school, he went traveling, spending several months in Greece, where he took various jobs, including picking oranges and grapes,, and whitewashing hotels.

From 1974 to 1977, Stewart studied at the University of Lancaster, majoring in English, (which included a Creative Writing unit) with a minor in Religious Education. On graduation, he went traveling again, before enrolling in 1978 to do an M.A. in Creative Writing with Angela Carter and Malcolm Bradbury at the University of East Anglia. He went to Heidelberg, Germany in 1979 for three years, both as a teacher of English and as a student at Heidelberg University, learning German. In 1982, he went to Sri Lanka to teach English as a foreign language returning to the UK a year later where he continued to teach (1983–90) before becoming a full-time writer.

Stewart's first book to be published was The Thought Domain (1988) which was then followed by a number of other children's and young adult novels, chiefly in the thriller, horror, and SF/Fantasy genres. Stewart's only adult book to date, Trek, was published in 1991.

Wikimedia Foundation. (2021, August 22). Paul Stewart (writer). Wikipedia. Retrieved November 18, 2021, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Stewart_(writer).

Lafcadio Hearn (1850–1904) was an American-Japanese author, born Lefkás, Ionian Islands, of Irish-Greek parentage. He was educated in Ireland, England, and France before immigrating to the United States in 1869. Handicapped by partial blindness, Hearn was a colorful, imaginative, but morbidly discontented man, who was most admired for his sensitive use of language in writing about the macabre and in creating strange exotic moods. Hearn first attracted attention with the originality and highly polished style of his "Fantastics," a series of weird sketches that appeared in a New Orleans paper. His first published book was One of Cleopatra's Nights (1882), a translation of six Gautier stories. In 1890 he went to Japan to write a series of articles for an American publisher. There he spent the rest of his life, writing what is considered his best work. He married a Japanese woman, taught in Japanese universities, and became a Japanese citizen in 1895, taking the name Yakumo Koizumi. Of his 12 books written during this period, Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan (1894), Kokoro (1896), Japanese Fairy Tales (1902), and Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation (1904) are most memorable.

The most emblematic work of Lafcadio Hearn (1850-1904) is Kwaidan (Ghost stories) a compendium of fantastic tales such as Mimi-Nashi-Hōïchi (The story of Hōïchi without ears) and Yuki-Onna (The woman in the snow) that is widely read both in Japan and abroad, and it has become an immortal work of art. Two figures coexisted in Hearn's person: on the one hand, he was a writer, and on the other, he was a philosopher who analyzed our materialistic civilization in depth.

Lafcadio Hearn. (2021). Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th Edition, 1.