Author
Event
Student
1
Alex Haley
Working as a journalist
2
Alice Walker
Tania Magallanes
3
Ambrose Bierce
Blinded in one eye after being shot by her
brother with a BB gun
Disappearance after following Pancho Villa
4
Amiri Baraka
Effect of the assassination of Malcolm X
Nick Gonzaga
5
Amy Tan
Publication of The Joy Luck Club
Matt Rho
6
Anne Bradstreet
7
Anne Lamont
Publication of The Tenth Muse Lately
Sprung Up in America, by a Gentlewoman
of Those Parts.
Subject of a 1999 documentary
8
Anne Sexton
Collaboration with Maxine Kumin
9
Anne Tyler
Childhood in Quaker communities
Chloe Lown
10
Annie Dillard
Receiving the Pulitzer Prize at 29
Marina Shenouda
11
Arna Bontemps
Move to New York
Sueann Kelly
12
Arthur Miller
Marriage to Marilyn Monroe
Zack Burgett
13
Avi (Edward Irving
Wortis)
Struggle with dysgraphia
Lauriane Gutierrez
14
Barbara Kingsolver
War Protests
Paul Nawar
15
Benjamin Franklin
Kite experiment
Jonathan Im
16
Bernard Malamud
Teaching at Oregon State University
17
Bret Harte
Move to California
Natamor Pasaribu
19
Carl Sandburg
Receiving his first Pulitzer Prize
Christian Miranda
20
Chaim Potok
Publication of The Chosen
21
Claude McKay
Conversion to Catholicism
Carly Elssmann
22
Countee Cullen
Schooling at Harvard
Michelle Wilborne
23
Daniel Handler (Lemony
Snicket)
Struggle to publish The Basic Eight
Alex Lampasi
Koby Bench
24
E. B. White
Working for The New Yorker
Scotty Weber
25
E. E. Cummings
Time as a political prisoner
Miguel Ruiz
26
Edgar Allan Poe
The death of his wife Virginia
Andrew Dang
27
Edna St. Vincent Millay
Education at Vassar College
28
Rejected marriage proposals to his
brother’s wife
Friendship with Robert Lowell
Christal Lirungan
29
Edwin Arlington
Robinson
Elizabeth Bishop
30
Emily Dickinson
Jefferd Daniel
31
Emma Lazarus
32
Ernest Hemingway
Sends four poems to Thomas Wentworth
Higginson
Donation of a sonnet for the Statue of
Liberty
Experiences in WWI
33
Eudora Welty
Mentoring of Katherine Anne Porter
34
Eugene O’Neill
Valerie Lopez
35
Ezra Pound
Time spent in a sanatorium because of
tuberculosis
Indicted for treason
36
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Broken engagement to Zelda Sayre
Tess Jackson
37
Flannery O’Connor
Return to her family home after diagnosed
with lupus
Tiffany Gomez
38
Frank Baum
Publication of The Wizard of Oz
REO
39
Frank Norris
Attendance at UC, Berkeley
40
Frederick Douglass
Lauren Bathan
41
Gary Soto
The publication of the Narrative of the Life
of Frederick Douglass
Studying poetry under Phillip Levine
42
Gertrude Stein
Move to Paris
Marissa Wright
43
Gwendolyn Brooks
Education in Chicago-area schools
44
Harper Lee
Writing To Kill a Mockingbird
Alex Nelson
45
Harriet Beecher Stowe
Publication of Uncle Tom’s Cabin
Karen Bathan
46
Henry David Thoreau
The night he spent in jail
Timothy Boskovic
47
Henry James
Travels to Europe
Austin Rubow
48
Henry Wadsworth
Longfellow
Death of his first wife
Kasey Henry
Marissa Chaffee
Josh McKeever
Shawn Weerawardana
49
Herman Melville
Friendship with Hawthorne
Primo Fernando
50
J. D. Salinger
Publication of Catcher in the Rye
Ismari Altimirano
51
Jack London
Joyce Zheng
52
James Baldwin
Accusations of Plagiarism of Chapter 7 of
The Iron Heel
Influence of Beauford Delaney
53
James Fenimore Cooper
Publication of The Pioneers
Adam Tsegga
54
James Michener
World War II service
Joshua Stange
55
James Thurber
Blinding from a game of William Tell
Jessica Bates
56
Jimmy Santiago Baca
Time spent in prison
Jake Strauss
57
Joan Didion
Deaths of her husband and daughter
Cassy Veluz
58
John Dos Passos
Service in World War I
Jonny Yong
59
John Green
Working in a cancer unit
Vanessa Desai
60
John Hersey
Interviewing survivors from Hiroshima
Elizabeth Bates
61
John Steinbeck
Publication of Tortilla Flat
Rodwell Flowers
62
John Updike
Working at The New Yorker
Alex Becerra
63
Joyce Carol Oates
The death of her husband
Alyssa Kim
64
Judy Blume
Sydney Gilbert
65
Julia Alvarez
Publication of Are You There Go?, It’s Me,
Margaret
Move to the United States
66
Kate Chopin
The publication of The Awakening
Aaron Malingkay
67
Katherine Anne Porter
1918 flu pandemic
Daniel Mirasol
68
Langston Hughes
Education at Columbia University
Michael Martinez
69
Laura Ingalls Wilder
Collaboration with her daughter, Rose
Amber Quijano
70
Lois Lowry
Freelance writer for Redbook magazine
Conrad Fletcher
71
Louis Sachar
Receiving the 1999 Newbery Medal
Ruben Soto
72
Louisa May Alcott
Joy Wilson
73
Madeleine L’Engle
Childhood in a Transcendentalist
community
Move to New York City in 1941
Jessica Lumintang
74
Marianne Moore
Editor of The Dial magazine
75
Mark Twain
76
Martin Luther King
The publication of “The Celebrated Jumping Jorald Feliciano
Frog of Calaveras County”
Montgomery Bus Boycott
Matt Wilson
77
Mary Austin
Move to California
78
Maxine Hong Kingston
Publication of her memoir
Meng-Yung Ong
79
Maya Angelou
Publication of her memoir
Jazmyne Petoskey
80
Michael Chabon
Publication of his first novel
81
Michael Crichton
English grade in high school
82
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Publication of The Scarlet Letter
Emery Wu
83
Nikki Giovanni
Teaching Seung-Hui Cho at Virginia Tech
Rang Kim
84
Norman Mailer
World War II service
Leo Gomez
85
Oliver Wendell Holmes
Friendships with the Transcendentalists
86
Patrick Henry
Sophia Goyne
87
Paul Laurence Dunbar
The delivery of his “Speech in the Virginia
Convention”
Writing the lyrics for In Dahomey
88
Pearl S. Buck
Receiving the Nobel Prize
Ashley Childers
89
Phillis Wheatley
Trip to England
90
R . L. Stine
Working for the Nickelodeon network
Mallory Bedney
91
Ralph Ellison
Publication of Invisible Man
Madeline Mace
92
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Scott Kidder
93
Ray Bradbury
Delivery of the Phi Beta Kappa Address
“The American Scholar
Publication of Fahrenheit 451
94
Raymond Carver
Sobriety
Marshay Horne
95
Richard Wright
Joining the Communist Party
Brad Weatherill
96
Robert Frost
Living in England
Emily Mejia
97
Robert Hayden
Conversion to the Bahá'í faith
Kevin Leeper
98
S. E. Hinton
Publication of The Outsiders
Annie Golay
Gerald Cheng
99
Sandra Cisneros
Publication of her first novel
Ashley Dritlein
100
Scott O’Dell
Working for the Los Angeles Mirror
Heidi Grable
101
Shel Silverstein
Death of his daughter, Shoshanna
David Martinez
102
Sinclair Lewis
Receiving the Nobel Prize
Daniela Infante
103
Stephen Crane
The wreck of the SS Commodore
Andrew Caster
104
Stephen King
Abandoned by father at 2 years old
Denice Veluz
105
Sylvia Plath
Shasta Erikson
106
T. S. Eliot
Suicide attempt while attending Smith
College
Move to England
107
Tennessee Williams
Close relationship with his sister Rose
Ariel Glass
108
Theodor Seuss Geisel
Publication of his first book
Andrew Kim
109
Theodore Roethke
Teaching at the University of Washington
Yuxi Zhang
110
Thomas Paine
Publication of Common Sense
Chase Sugiono
111
Thornton Wilder
Receiving the Pulitzer Prize for Our Town
Elijah Hill
112
Tim O’Brien
Participation in My Lai Massacre
Chris Sinn
113
Toni Morrison
Harold G-L
114
Truman Capote
Receiving the Nobel Prize in literature in
1993
Writing In Cold Blood
115
Upton Sinclair
Joining the Communist Party
Laurentiu Popescu
116
W. H. Auden
Move to America
Kaitlyn Whitley
117
Wallace Stegner
Teaching career at Stanford University
118
Wallace Stevens
World War I service
Kevin Dockham
119
Walt Whitman
The publication of “O Captain, My Captain”
Anthony Watkins
120
Washington Irving
Nicholas Putrasahan
121
Willa Cather
Creation of the literary magazine,
Salmagundi
Childhood move to Nebraska
122
William Carlos Williams
Association with “The Others”
Adam Basical
123
William Cullen Bryant
Publication of “Thanatopsis “
Garrison Augustines
Nathan Pugh
Andy Palomares
124
William Faulkner
Winning the Nobel Prize
Andy Martinez
125
William Saroyan
Time spent in an orphanage
Teia Campbell
126
Zane Grey
Publication of his first western
127
Zora Neale Hurston
Travels to Jamaica and Haiti in 1936-1937
Abry Gittens
128
Robert Kirkman
Publication of The Walking Dead
Jian Motil
129
Jack Kerouac
130
Brandon Sanderson
Working overseas
Freddie Simental
132
John Howard Griffin
Writing Black Like Me
Ryan Williams
133
James Russell Lowell
Death of his daughter
Jeff Strayhorn
Elyse Douglas