Author Christina Stead was born in Rockdale, New South Wales, Australia on July 17, 1902. She left Australia in 1928 and spent time in Europe, England, and the United States before permanently returning in 1974. She wrote fifteen novels and numerous volumes of short stories. She is best known for her novel, The Man Who Loved Children, which was based on her childhood. Her novels were unpublished in Australia until 1965 and she was denied the Britannica-Australia award in 1967 on the grounds that she was no longer considered an Australian. In 1974, she won the Patrick White award. While living in the United States during the 1940s, she worked as a Hollywood scriptwriter and contributed to… Madame Curie and They Were Expendable. She died on March 31, 1983.
Randall Jarrell was born in Nashville, Tennessee on May 6, 1914. He earned a bachelor's and master's degrees from Vanderbilt University. His first book of poetry, Blood from a Stranger, was published in 1942. During World War II, he served with the Army Air Force as a control tower operator. His other books of poetry include Little Friend, Little Friend; Losses; and The Lost World. He won the National Book Award in 1961 for The Woman at the Washington Zoo. In addition to writing poetry, he reviewed it during a brief period spent as poetry editor for The Nation. Poetry and the Age and A Sad Heart at the Supermarket are collections of his essays as a poetry critic. His teaching career… included stints at Kenyon College, the University of Texas, Sarah Lawrence College, the University of Illinois, and the University of North Carolina/Greensboro. He also was the 11th Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress, a position that now bears the title Poet Laureate. He was hit by a car in Chapel Hill, North Carolina and died in October 14, 1965 at the age of 51.