Ernest Hemingway (Full name: Ernest Miller Hemingway), was an American author best known for novels and short stories. He is considered one of the most influential writers in American literature. Hemingway received the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1953 and the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1954.

He was born on 21 July, 1899 in Oak Park, Illinois, U.S. His father was a physician and his mother a musician.

At 17, he began his career as a cub-reporter for the Kansas City Star before volunteering as an ambulance driver for the American Red Cross at the Italian front during World War 1. A few days before his 19^th birthday, he was seriously wounded during a mortar attack. Despite his injuries, he helped evacuate Italian soldiers. He was awarded the Italian Silver Medal of Military Valor for his bravery.

After his return to the United States, he got married to his first wife, Hadley Richardson, in 1921 two months after his 22 birthday. They moved to Paris a few months later after Hemingway was hired as a foreign correspondent for the Toronto Star.

He began his writing career in Paris and in 1926; he published his first novel The Sun Also Rises. From mid-1920s to the mid-1950s, he produced most of his work including classics such as A Farewell to Arms (1929), For Whom the Bells Toll (1940), and The Old Man and the Sea (1952).

Hemingway published ten novels/novellas, nine short-story collections, and four nonfiction works. At least ten of his published worked were published posthumously.

On a trip to Africa in 1954, Hemingway was survived a plane crash over the Belgian Congo but he suffered injuries from which he never fully recovered. He died on 2 July, 1961 at the age of 61 after taking his life with a shotgun.

Hemingway’s influenced many fiction writers in the 20^th century and his understated style of writing was widely imitated. If you want to know more about him, read his memoir A Moveable Feast (1964) which chronicles his early life as a struggling journalist and writer in Paris in the 1920s.

Neil Gaiman (Full name: Neil Richard MacKinnon Gaiman) is a best-selling English author best known for his fantasy novel (American Gods) and graphic novel series (The Sandman) and young adult novel (Coraline).

His body of work spans several media including novels, comics, graphic novels, non-fiction, TV and films.

Neil Gaiman was born on 10th November 1960 in Hampshire, England. He currently resides in the US, having moved there in 1992. He began his writing career in journalism in the 1980s but he quit journalism in 1987 to concentrate on writing. He wrote his first book, a Duran Duran biography, in 1984. His breakthrough, however, came when he started writing comic books, specifically the Sandman, a graphic novel series.

He has won numerous awards for his books including four Hugo and two Nebula awards. Some of the most awarded books include The Graveyard Book (Newberry and Carnegie Medals, Hugo and Locus Awards), Coraline (Hugo, Nebula and Bram Stoker Awards) and American Gods (Nebula, Hugo, Locus and Bram Stoker Awards)

Gaiman has also written or co-written screen plays for several popular movies (Coraline, Beowulf, Mirrormask) and TV series (American Gods, Good Omens, Beowulf, Babylon 5, Doctor Who).

Coraline, an animated feature film based on his book, was nominated for numerous awards including the Academy Awards, Golden Globe and BAFTA awards. It grossed over $124 million worldwide to make it the third highest-grossing stop-motion film of all time.

Neil Gaiman is also a prolific blogger. He established his blog in 2001 which now receives over a million regular readers. You can read his blog at his official website.

If you want to learn how to write from Neil Gaiman, check out his writing course on MasterClass. Learn more about MasterClass courses here.

Dan Brown (full name: Daniel Gerhard Brown) is a best-selling American author of thriller novels. He is most famous for The Da Vinci Code, which on one of the best-selling novels of all time.

Most of his books explore the interplay between science and religion and feature recurring themes of Christianity, conspiracy theories, cryptography, and art.

Dan Brown was born on June 22, 1964 in in Exeter, New Hampshire, US. His father, Richard Brown, was a mathematics teacher and his mother, Constance, was a church organist.

After his graduation from college, he embarked on a music career and formed his own record company. His music career, however, didn’t take off and in 1993; he returned to New Hampshire and got a job teaching English at Phillips Exeter Academy.

Brown was inspired to start writing after reading Sidney Sheldon’s The Doomsday Conspiracy while on vacation in Tahiti in 1993. His first book, Digital Fortress, was published 5 years later in 1998 when he was 34 years old. Brown then wrote Angels and Demons (2000) and Deception Point (2001).

In 2003, his fourth novel, The Da Vinci Code, catapulted him to world-wide fame and renewed interest in his earlier books. In fact, four of his books were on the New York Times Best Seller list in the same week in 2004. By 2009, The Da Vinci Code has sold 81 million copies worldwide.

Dan Brown’s has written 9 books that have sold over 200 million copies and have been translated into 56 languages. Four of his books, Angels and Demons, The Da Vinci Code, and Inferno have been made into films. His book The Lost Symbol has been made into a TV series.

The success of his books has made him a wealthy man. In 2014, he reportedly earned $34 million from his books and his net worth is currently estimated to be around $160 million.

Brown was named one of TIME magazine’s 100 Most Influential People in the World in 2005.

If you want to learn how to write from Dan Brown, check out his writing course on MasterClass. Learn more about MasterClass courses here.