1492 – Marguerite de Navarre, writer, poet, playwright, salon leader, princess of France, and Queen consort of Navarre; as an author and patron of humanists and reformers, she was a key figure of the French Renaissance and was once called “The First Modern Woman.”
1883 – Camille Marbo (real name Marguerite Appell Borel), French writer who was president and laureate of the Prix Femina and president of the Société des gens de lettres.
1893 – Dean Acheson, Pulitzer Prize-winning American memoirist, lawyer, and U.S. Secretary of State.
1898 – Conny Méndez, Venezuelan writer, caricaturist, composer, singer, and actress who wrote about metaphysics.
1903 – Misuzu Kaneko, Japanese poet, writer, and songwriter who has been compared to Christina Rossetti; she was born in a fishing village, and often included images of fishing and the sea in her work.
1911 – David Westheimer, American novelist and editor.
1920 – Peter O’Donnell, British writer of mysteries and comic strips who also wrote gothic romances, under the pseudonym Madeline Brent.
1931 – Nelly Kaplan, French filmmaker, screenwriter, author, essayist, and journalist.
1934 – Mark Strand, Canadian-born American poet, essayist, professor, and translator who was U.S. Poet Laureate.
1940 – Thomas Harris, American author, journalist, and screenwriter best known for his series of novels about his fictional serial killer Hannibal Lecter.
1951 – James Patrick Kelly, Hugo and Nebula Award-winning American author of science fiction and cyberpunk novels and short stories.
1968 – Cecilia Eudave, Mexican writer, poet, novelist, short-story author, and professor.
1977 – Lee Young-you, Korean writer and comic-book artist.
