Carl Hiaasen was born in Fort Lauderdale, Florida on March 12, 1953. He received a degree in journalism from the University of Florida in 1974. He has been a reporter and columnist for the Miami Herald since 1976, and is known for exposing scandal and corruption throughout southern Florida. He has received numerous state and national honors for his journalism and commentary including the Damon Runyon Award from the Denver Press Club. His work has also appeared in numerous magazines including Sports Illustrated, Playboy, Time, Life, Esquire and Gourmet. His best-selling novels include Double Whammy, Skin Tight, Native Tongue, Stormy Weather, Lucky You, Sick Puppy, Basket Case, and Nature… Girl. His 1993 novel, Striptease, was adapted as a film in 1996 starring Demi Moore and Burt Reynolds. He also writes children's books including Hoot, which was awarded a Newbery Honor; Flush; and Scat. Hoot was adapted into a film in 2006. His non-fiction works include Team Rodent; The Downhill Lie: A Hacker's Return to a Ruinous Sport; and two collections of his newspaper columns entitled Kick Ass and Paradise Screwed. In 2013 his titles Chomp and Bad Monkey made The New York Times bestseller list. In 2014, his non-fiction title Dance of the Reptiles made it to the New York Times bestseller list. Skink - No Surrender made the New York Times bestseller list in 2014.
Dave Barry was born in Armonk, New York on July 3, 1947. He received an English degree from Haverford College in 1969. His early attempts at small-town journalism for the Daily Local News in West Chester, Pennsylvania, were directed towards local matters, such as zoning and sewage. In 1975, he briefly attempted to teach business writing to business people. Since then, he has worked as a professional humorist. For many years he wrote a newspaper column that appeared in more than 500 newspapers and for which he won the Pulitzer Prize for commentary. He is the author of numerous fiction, nonfiction, and young adult books. His novels include Big Trouble, Tricky Business, Lunatics, and Insane… City. His nonfiction works include Dave Barry's Complete Guide to Guys, Dave Barry Slept Here: A Sort of History of the United States, I'll Mature When I'm Dead, and You Can Date Boys When You're Forty: Dave Barry on Parenting and Other Topics He Knows Very Little About. His young adult books include the Starcatchers series and Never Land series.
Elmore John Leonard, Jr. 10/11/25 -- 8/20/13 Elmore John Leonard, Jr., popularly known as mystery and western writer Elmore Leonard, was born in New Orleans, Louisiana on October 11, 1925. He served in the United States Naval Reserve from 1943 to 1946. He received a Ph.D. in English from the University of Detroit in 1950. After graduating, he wrote short stories and western novels as well as advertising and education film scripts. In 1967, he began to write full-time and received several awards including the 1977 Western Writers of America award and the 1984 Writers of America Edgar Allan Poe award. His other works include Get Shorty, Out of Sight, Hombre, Mr. Majestyk, 3:10 to Yuma, and… Rum Punch. Many of his works were adapted into movies. Library of America recently announced plans to publish the first of a three-volume collection of his books beginning in the Fall of 2014. Leonard died on August 20, 2013 from complications of a stroke he had earlier. He was 87 years old.
James W. Hall was born in Hopkinsville, Kentucky. After graduating from Eckerd College in Florida and earning additional degrees from John Hopkins University and the University of Utah, He began to write poetry. Among his published books of poetry are The Lady from the Dark Green Hills, The Mating Reflex, and False Statements. Following his successful 20-year career as a poet, he decided it was time to switch gears and try his hand at writing fictional crime novels. He published his first novel, Under Cover of Daylight, in 1987. Since then he has written over 15 novels including the Thorn Mysteries series, Bones of Coral, Hard Aground, Rough Draft, and Forests of the Night. Several of his… novels have been optioned for film and he has written screenplays for two of those projects. He is a professor of literature and writing at Florida International University.
Edna Rydzik Buchanan was born in 1939 near Paterson, New Jersey. She attended creative writing classes at Montclair State Teacher's College. Buchanan was one of the first female crime reporters in Miami. Her police reporting for the Miami Herald won her a Pulitzer Prize in 1986. In 1979, Buchanan produced her first book, Carr: Five Years of Rape and Murder; From the Personal Account of Robert Frederick Car III. This nonfiction book recounts the story of a convicted rapist and murderer. In 1987, she published her memoirs, The Corpse Had a Familiar Face: Covering Miami, America's Hottest Beat. That book was followed in 1991 by Never Let Them See You Cry: More From Miami's Hottest Beat.… Buchanan's crime novels include Nobody Lives Forever and Pulse. She is perhaps best known, however, for her mystery novels featuring a Cuban American crime reporter, Britt Montero. These titles include Contents Under Pressure; Miami, It's Murder; Suitable for Framing; Margin of Error, and Act of Betrayal. She has been a contributor to several magazines, including Fame, Family Circle, Cosmopolitan and Rolling Stone. Buchanan has received awards from the American Bar Association, National Newspaper Association, and the Society of Professional Journalists.