7 Author Shoutouts | Authors We Love To Recommend

Here are 7 Author Shoutouts for this week. Find your favorite author or discover an author whose work you have not yet read.

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In This Week’s Author Shoutouts

David Rakoff

An Author Shoutout to David Rakoff, a multi-talented individual born in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Alongside being a writer, he also excelled as an actor, journalist, publicist, and frequent contributor to the radio show This American Life. Despite primarily identifying as a New York writer after relocating and fully embracing the city in 1982, Rakoff proudly represented his Canadian heritage, Jewish background, and his identity as a gay writer. Additionally, he humorously described himself as a writer with a forgotten knowledge of his major in East Asian Studies.

Regrettably, in 2012, at the age of 47, he met a tragic demise due to Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Following his passing, his innovative novel, Love, Dishonor, Marry, Die, Cherish, Perish, which was entirely written in verse, was published a year later.

William Blake

William Blake, a London-born author, deserves an Author Shoutout for his significant contributions. Despite being relatively unknown during his lifetime, Blake is now regarded as one of the foremost poets and painters of the Romantic era. At the age of 21, he pursued a career as an engraver and later decided to further his education in painting. At 28, he married Catherine, who was initially illiterate. However, he diligently taught her how to read, write, and engrave, transforming her into an invaluable asset to his work.

He published his initial set of poems in 1783, while his renowned epic poem, Milton, accompanied by his own illustrations, was written during the years 1804-1810. A man of great intrigue and fascination, he passed away in 1827 at the age of 69.

Madeleine L’Engle

Madeleine L’Engle, born in New York City, receives an Author Shoutout. Despite being called stupid as a child, she graduated cum laude from Smith College. At the age of 40, she nearly abandoned writing due to repeated rejections. However, her renowned novel, A Wrinkle in Time, triumphed after being rejected over 30 times and was eventually published in 1962. Later that year, the book won a Newbery Award.

Ms L’Engle wrote for both children and adults, and in 1997, she was honored with the Lifetime Achievement award by the World Fantasy Awards. Additionally, she received the National Humanities Medal in 2004. Ms L’Engle passed away in 2007 at the age of 88 from natural causes.

Tayari Jones

Tayari Jones, the author of the acclaimed novel An American Marriage, deserves an Author Shoutout. Originally from Atlanta, Georgia, Jones has achieved notable success, including being chosen as a 2018 Oprah’s Book Club Selection and winning the 2019 Women’s Prize for Fiction. She completed her education at Spelman College, the University of Iowa, and Arizona State University. Currently, she serves as a faculty member in the English department of Emory University’s College of Arts and Sciences. After spending ten years in New York City, Jones has recently returned to her hometown of Atlanta.

Her books, such as Leaving Atlanta, The Untelling, and An American Marriage, depict the dynamics of parent-child and marital relationships, often characterized by fractures.

Candace Bushnell

Candace Bushnell, originally from Glastonbury, Connecticut, deserves an Author Shoutout. Back in 1997, she transformed a collection of columns she wrote for the New York Observer into an anthology centered around her own and her friends’ dating experiences in their early to mid 30s. This anthology, titled Sex in the City, generated significant buzz and caught the attention of HBO, leading to a groundbreaking TV series bearing the same name. The characters from the show have since become icons within popular culture.

Ms. Bushnell has written seven novels since then (including Lipstick Jungle and The Carrie Diaries).

Ann Patchett

An Author Shoutout to Ann Patchett, born in Los Angeles, California, who deserves recognition. Residing in Nashville, Tennessee for a significant period of time after relocating at the age of six with her mother, Patchett gained literary acclaim with her fourth novel, Bel Canto, published in 2001. This remarkable piece of work not only made her a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award but also secured her the prestigious PEN/Faulkner Award.

She currently resides in Nashville, where she owns both the Parnassus Books bookstore and its mobile counterpart. With a total of ten novels to her name, including Tom Lake, as well as five non-fiction works, she also had the honor of editing the 2006 edition of The Best American Short Stories anthology series.

Joseph Conrad

An Author Shoutout to Joseph Conrad who was born in Berdichev, Imperial Russia (now Ukraine, then a part of Poland). Despite residing in England and writing in English, he consistently identified as a Pole. Interestingly, it’s remarkable that he didn’t even achieve fluency in English until his twenties.

Heart of Darkness, amongst his 20 novels, delves into the complexities of colonialism and the contrasting perceptions of barbarism and civilization. It is regarded as one of the finest English novels of the 20th century, alongside his work Lord Jim, which recounts the tale of a crew forsaking their incapacitated vessel. Conrad passed away in England in 1924, likely due to a heart attack, at the age of 66.

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