Plato (Greek: Πλάτων), born Aristocles (c. 427 – 348 BC), was an ancient Greek philosopher of the Classical period who is considered a foundational thinker in Western philosophy and an innovator of t…
Stephen Edwin King was born the second son of Donald and Nellie Ruth Pillsbury King. After his father left them when Stephen was two, he and his older brother, David, were raised by his mother. Parts …
Maya Angelou was an American memoirist, poet, and civil rights activist. She published seven autobiographies, three books of essays, several books of poetry, and is credited with a list of plays, movi…
Yukio Mishima (三島 由紀夫) was born in Tokyo in 1925. He graduated from Tokyo Imperial University’s School of Jurisprudence in 1947. His first published book, The Forest in Full Bloom, appeared in 1944 an…
Larry Clark is an American photographer and filmmaker known for his raw and unfiltered depictions of youth culture. Often controversial, Clark’s black-and-white images unflinchingly capture overt sexu…
Born in Buenos Aires to Russian parents who had fled Europe and the Nazi Holocaust, Alejandra Pizarnik was destined for literary greatness as well as an early death. She died from an ostensibly self-a…
Birgit Vanderbeke was a German writer. Vanderbeke grew up in Frankfurt am Main after her family moved to West Germany in 1961. She studied Law, Germanic and Romance languages. The English translation …
PATTI SMITH is a writer, performer, and visual artist. She gained recognition in the 1970s for her revolutionary merging of poetry and rock. She has released twelve albums, including Horses, which has…
Suehiro Maruo ( 丸尾 末広) is a Japanese manga author and illustrator. Maruo graduated from junior high school in March 1972 but dropped out of senior high school. At the age of 15 he moved to Tokyo and b…
Kyōko Okazaki (岡崎京子) is a Japanese cartoonist. In a relatively short career, spanning from 1983 to 1996, Okazaki established herself as a leading figure in josei manga, i.e. comics primarily targeting…
Cassandra Peterson (born September 17, 1951) is an American actress best known for her on-screen horror hostess character Elvira, Mistress of the Dark. She gained fame on Los Angeles television statio…
Cat Marnell is a Condé Nast drop-out and former beauty editor at Lucky and xoJane.com. She wrote the “Amphetamine Logic” column for Vice. How to Murder Your Life is her first book.
Natsume Sōseki (夏目 漱石), born Natsume Kinnosuke (夏目 金之助), was a Japanese novelist. He is best known for his novels Kokoro, Botchan, I Am a Cat and his unfinished work Light and Darkness. He was also a …