Justin Kaplan was born in Manhattan, New York on September 5, 1925. He received a bachelor's degree in English from Harvard University, followed by graduate work in the field there, but he left before earning a doctorate to work as a freelance writer and book editor. His first book, Mr. Clemens and Mark Twain, won the Pulitzer Prize for biography in 1967 and a National Book Award. His other works include Lincoln Steffens: A Biography, When the Astors Owned New York: Blue Bloods and Grand Hotels in a Gilded Age, and Walt Whitman: A Life, which won a National Book Award. He also wrote books with his wife Anne Bernays including The Language of Names and Back Then: Two Lives in 1950s New York.… He was the editor of Bartlett's Familiar Quotations. He died from complications of Parkinson's disease on March 2, 2014 at the age of 88.
James A. Michener, 1907 - 1997 James Albert Michener was born on February 3, 1907 in Doylestown, Pa. He earned an A.B. from Swarthmore College, an A.M. from Colorado State College of Education, and an M.A. from Harvard University. He taught for many years and was an editor for Macmillan Publishing Company. His first book, "Tales of the South Pacific," derived from Michener's service in the Pacific in World War II, won the 1947 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and was the basis for the Rodgers and Hammerstein Broadway musical South Pacific, which won the 1950 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Michener completed close to 40 novels. Some other epic works include "Hawaii," "Centennial," "Space," and… "Caribbean." He also wrote a significant amount of nonfiction including his autobiography "The World Is My Home." Among his many other honors, James Michener received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1977. He was married to Patti Koon in 1935; they divorced in 1948. He married Vange Nord in 1948 (divorced 1955) and Mari Yoriko Sabusawa in 1955 (deceased 1994). He died in 1997 in Austin, Texas.Debbie Macomber was born on October 22, 1948 in Yakima, Washington. Her first novel, Heartsong, was published as a Silhouette Inspiration in 1984, and it became the first romance novel ever to be reviewed in Publishers Weekly. She has written more than 150 novels since then including Back on Blossom Street; Susannah's Garden; A Good Yarn; The Shop on Blossom Street; Between Friends; the Cedar Cove series; Family Affair; Three Brides, No Groom; Starting Now; and Starry Night. She received Romantic Times Magazine's Lifetime Achievement Award.