The best we can do to honor Orwell on his birthday is to do what Bush spokesman Ari Fleischer admonished us to do shortly after 9/11: watch what we say. Taking Orwell seriously means never being comfortable with our own words, never being certain that we are speaking or writing consciously. It could not...(READ MORE)
Even if Tobias Wolff, who turns sixty-nine today (June 19), never writes another word, he can rest assured he proved his stepfather wrong: when it comes to writing with truth and integrity, he knows it all.(READ MORE)
Salman Rushdie's publication of The Satanic Verses catapulted him into the literary spotlight and the political cross-hairs of religious extremists. He was forced to go into hiding, and assume the literary alias 'Joseph Anton' to avoid detection. (READ MORE)
Nathan Gelgud illustrates the hardscrabble life described in Carol Sklenicka's biography 'Raymond Carver: A Writer's Life.' (READ MORE)
Playwright and fiction writer James Leo Herlihy, born on this day in 1927 in Detroit, Michigan, is best remembered for his novel Midnight Cowboy -- and we're starting to get to know so much more worth remembering. (READ MORE)
Imagine, if you will, that this evening, on the occasion of Gay Talese’s eighty-second birthday, we are a throwing a dinner party in his honor, with a guest list made up of the eclectic sources and forces who have shaped his work and life. (READ MORE)
To the woman who helped foster a literary generation, and advance her progressive values farther than most, we wish Gertrude Stein a happy 140th birthday with these nine quotes.(READ MORE)
Birthday boy Anton Chekhov, born today in 1860, was quite the lover. We've created an online dating profile for him by pulling from "A Life in Letters," Rosamund Bartlett's compilation of his correspondence. (READ MORE)
In Her, the new movie featuring Joaquin Phoenix, Amy Adams, Rooney Mara, and the voice of Scarlett Johansson, writer-director Spike Jonze incorporates the spirit and "voice" of the late Zen philosopher Alan Watts, born on this day in 1915.(READ MORE)
ulitzer Prize and Tony Award winning playwright Wendy Wasserstein was born on this day in 1950 and died in New York City in 2006. Her biographer Julie Salamon joins Biographile for a conversation about her work and life.(READ MORE)
