Don DeLillo was born in the Bronx, New York on November 20, 1936. He received a bachelor's degree in communication arts from Fordham University in 1958. After graduation, he was a copywriter for an advertising company and wrote short stories on the side. His first story, The River Jordan, was published two years later in Epoch, the literary magazine of Cornell University. His first novel, Americana, was published in 1971. His other works include Ratner's Star, The Names, Libra, Underworld, The Body Artist, Cosmopolis, Falling Man, Point Omega, and The Angel Esmeralda, a collection of short stories. He won several awards including the National Book Award for fiction in 1985 for White Noise,… the PEN/Faulkner Award in 1992 for Mao II, the PEN/Saul Bellow Award for Achievement in American Fiction in 2010, and the inaugural Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction in 2013.Sarah Vowell lives in New York City.