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.

Anais Nin (Full name: Angela Anaïs Juana Antolina Rosa Edelmira Nin y Culmell) is best known as a diarist and novelist. She is most famous for her published diaries The Diary of Anaïs Nin.  In addition to her diary, she has written several erotic works, short stories, and critical essays.

Anais was born on February 21, 1903, in Neuilly, France to Cuban parents. Her father, Joaquín Nin, was a composer and her mother, Rosa Culmell, was a classically trained singer.

She moved to America with her mother and her brothers after her parents separated when she was two. She started keeping a diary when she was eleven and continued writing in her diary throughout her life.

When she was 20, she got married to a banker, Hugh Guiler, and they moved to Paris settled into a typical married lifestyle. During this time, she wrote an analysis of D. H. Lawrence’s controversial novels.

In 1931, she met writer Henry Miller and this marked a turning point in her life. She developed a creative collaboration and a strong personal relationship with him. Miller, whose works were banned in the US for being pornographic, encouraged her to publish her work.

After 10 years in Europe, she and her husband were forced to leave for America in 1939 at the outbreak of the Second World War.  In America, she struggled to have her work commercially published before finally deciding to self-publish her work.

After years of struggling to find significance in the literary world, Anais shot to fame in 1966 at the age of 63 with the publication of the first installment of her diary, The Diary of Anaïs Nin.  A total of seven volumes of her diary have been published.

The diaries record her thoughts and feelings about various events in her life including extra-marital affairs with high profile men like the writer Henry Miller, psychoanalyst Otto Rank, and Marxist Gonzalo Moré. She also writes about an incestuous relationship with her father, abortion, and a bigamous marriage to a young actor 16 years her junior.

Anais Nin died of cervical cancer on January 14, 1977, in Los Angeles, California, U.S at the age of 73.

During her lifetime, she was quite a controversial figure because she wrote, without shame, on issues that were considered taboo. However, with the rise of the women’s movement in the 1960s and 70s, she gained fame as a feminist icon. She regularly gave lectures at various universities and was given various awards including being elected to the National Institute of Arts and Letters in 1974.

In recent times, her quotes have become popular on the internet and social media and she has been transformed into an inspirational figure in self-help circles. Her quotes reveal her philosophical side and her approach to dealing with a difficult life.