Cincinnati Born: August 23, 1975 Ohio connection: Birth Curtis Sittenfeld was born August 23, 1975, in Cincinnati. The second child of four, she is the daughter of Paul G. Sittenfeld (an investment banker) and Elizabeth Curtis (an art history teacher). She attended Seven Hills School in Cincinnati through 8th Grade and then moved to the Groton School, a …
Read More Sittenfeld, CurtisDayton Born: May 2, 1950 Died: April 12, 2009 Ohio connection: Birth Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick was born May 2, 1950, in Dayton, Ohio, to Leon Kosofsky (an engineer) and Rita Goldstein Kosofsky (high school teacher). She had two siblings, a brother and a sister. During her childhood the family moved to Bethesda, Maryland when her father accepted a …
Read More Sedgwick, Eve KosofskyCincinnati Born: March 7, 1944 Ohio Connection: Birth Stanley Albert Schmidt was born on March 7, 1944 in Cincinnati, Ohio. Schmidt received his B.S. from the University of Cincinnati in 1966 and both an M.A. and Ph.D., from Case Western Reserve University in 1968 and 1969, respectively. From 1969 to 1978 he was the assistant professor of …
Read More Schmidt, StanleyXenia Born: February 27, 1888 Died: October 30, 1965 Ohio connection: Birth Arthur M. Schlesinger was born in Xenia, Ohio, on February 27, 1888, the son of a first-generation immigrant. Schlesinger graduated in 1910 from Ohio State University. As a graduate student at Columbia, he was influenced by Herbert Levi Osgood, James Harvey Robinson, and Charles A. …
Read More Schlesinger, Arthur MeierCincinnati Born: November 25, 1895Died: February 21, 1986Ohio connection: Birth Born on November 25, 1895, Cincinnati-native Helen Hooven Santmyer was the daughter of Joseph Wright and Bertha (Hooven) Santmyer. As a youth she loved to write, penning her stories in a makeshift office that her mother prepared. After recovering from an attack of typhoid fever, she entered …
Read More Helen Hooven SantmyerBorn: February 19, 1902 Died: December 27, 1992 Ohio connection: Former Resident Cincinnati Kay Boyle was a versatile writer, educator and political activist. She was twice awarded Guggenheim fellowships and won the O. Henry Award for best short story of the year (“The White Horses of Vienna”) in 1935 and again (“Defeat”) in 1941. Boyle has …
Read More Boyle, KayBorn: November 25, 1899Died: April 25, 1982 Ohio connection: Birth Springfield Although an author of Westerns and a successful screenwriter, William Riley Burnett is best known as the originator of the gangster novel. The underworld icons of sleek cars, flashy clothes, bootleg liquor, and tommy guns find their origins in Burnett’s first novel, Little Caesar (1929). The …
Read More William Riley BurnettBorn: October 30, 1949 Ohio connection: Birth Cincinnati Louise Walker Borden was born in Cincinnati on October 30, 1949 to William Lee and Louise (Crutcher) Walker. Inspired by a grandmother who loved history, Borden grew up fascinated by the stories of ordinary people and their relation to historical events. An avid reader of nonfiction and historical …
Read More Borden, LouiseBorn: February 21, 1927 Died: April 22, 1996 Ohio connection: Birth Bellbrook (Dayton) Erma Louise Bombeck (nee Fiste), a columnist and best-selling author once named by the world almanac as one of the most influential people in America, was born in Bellbrook, Ohio, on February 21, 1927. Bombeck grew up in one of the working-class neighborhoods on Hedges Street …
Read More Bombeck, Erma LouiseBorn: July 20, 1924 Died: July 13, 2014 Ohio connection: Birth Cincinnati Thomas Louis Berger, deemed “one of the 20th century’s most important writers in the English-speaking world” by the Times Literary Supplement, was born on July 20, 1924, in Cincinnati, Ohio. This satiric and darkly funny novelist is revered by writers and critics everywhere who, …
Read More Berger, Thomas Louis