March 5 Writer Birthdays

1145 – Baha ad-Din ibn Shaddad, Iraqi poet, writer, biographer, theologian, jurist and professor.

1840 – Constance Fenimore Woolson, American poet, novelist, and short-story writer whose great uncle was novelist James Fenimore Cooper; her fiction focused on the Great Lakes region, the American South, and American expatriates in Europe.

1853 – Howard Pyle, American author and illustrator of books for young people, and founder of a school for aspiring illustrators.

1870 – Frank Norris, American novelist, journalist, and naturalist of the Progressive Era.

1882 – Dora Marsden, English writer, suffragist, founder and editor of literary journals, and philosopher of language.

1893 – Lucy Larcom, American teacher, poet, author, teacher, editor, and literary magazine founder who wrote one of the best accounts of a New England childhood of her time, A New England Girlhood, commonly used as a reference in studying antebellum American childhood.

1896 – Lotte H. Eisner, German historian, writer, poet, archivist, and film critic.

1901 – Yocheved Bat-Miriam (pen name of Yocheved Zhlezniak), Belarus-born Israeli poet whose work expressed nostalgia for the landscapes of her birthland; after the death of her son Nahum (Zuzik) Hazaz during the Palestine war, she never wrote another poem.

1905 – Kalutara Koralalage Edward Winifred Brito Adikaram, Sri Lankan, writer, social activist, and philosopher.

1922 – Pier Paolo Pasolini, Italian poet, playwright, screenwriter, film director, poet, writer, translator, journalist, film critic, novelist, and intellectual.

1926 – Shimon Tzabar, Israeli writer, poet, politician, illustrator, biologist, painter, journalist, children’s writer, opinion journalist, and peace activist.

1939 – Charles Henry Fuller, Jr., Pulitzer Prize-winning African-American playwright whose drama A Soldier’s Play was made into the film, A Soldier’s Story.

1939 – Dibyendu Palit, Indian writer of Bengali poems, novels, and short stories.

1939 – Chögyam Trungpa, Tibetan Buddhist monk, meditation master, abbot, poet, scholar, artist, translator, university founder, and originator of a radical re-presentation of Shambhala vision.

1940 – Olivera Katarina (who has also used the surnames Petrovic, Vuco, and Šakic), Serbian poet, writer, and singer who was one of the leading stars of Yugoslav cinema.

1941 – Chalkdust (real name Hollis Urban Lester Liverpool), award-winning Trinidadian and Tobagonian musician, writer, music historian, ethnomusicologist, and professor, known for his calypso singing, his lectures on the history and culture of calypso music, and his books on the cultural history of calypso, as well as his title as World Calypso King.

1942 – Mike Resnick, American author and editor of science fiction and fantasy who won five Hugo Awards and a Nebula Award; he also wrote more than 200 erotic novels under pseudonyms, edited three men’s magazines and seven tabloid newspapers, and wrote a weekly column about horse racing and a monthly column about purebred collies.

1944 – Elisabeth Badinter, French historian, philosopher, feminist, and essayist who is best known for her treatises on feminism and women’s role in society and as an advocate for liberal feminism and for the rights of women migrant workers in France.

1945 – Selina Hastings, award-winning British writer, biographer, journalist, literary historian

1946 – Mem Fox, Australian children’s book author, professor, editor, and educational specialist whose focus is literacy.

1947 – Julia Dykins Baird, British author, teacher, and tour company leader who wrote a biography of her older half-brother, musician John Lennon.

1948 – Leslie Marmon Silko, award-winning Native American novelist, poet, and essayist who identifies most strongly with her Laguna Pueblo heritage but is also Mexican and Anglo-American; she is one of the key figures in the First Wave of the Native American Renaissance.

1952 – Robin Hobb (pen name for Margaret Astrid Lindholm Ogden), bestselling American science-fiction author who also writes under the name Megan Lindholm.

1953 – Alma Katarina Frostenson Arnault, Swedish poet and writer who was made a Chevalier of the Legion of Honour in recognition of her services to literature; she is one of Sweden’s foremost poets, writing in a style that is both experimental and archaic.

1953 – Gardi Hutter, Swiss writer, children’s author, comedian, actress, and clown.

1965 – Xu Kun, Chinese postmodern fiction writer; she is currently the deputy chair of the Beijing Writers Association.

1966 – Mark Z. Danielewski, American author whose novels experiment with form; his work is characterized by an intricate, multilayered typographical variation, or page layout, sometimes known as visual writing.

1986 – Sarah J. Maas, American fantasy author and children’s novelist.