Marilynne Robinson (born 1947) is an American author. She was born and grew up in Sandpoint, Idaho, and did her undergraduate work at Pembroke College, the former women's college at Brown University, receiving her B.A. in 1966. She received her Ph.D. in English from the University of Washington in 1977. Her first novel, "Housekeeping" (1980), won a PEN/Hemingway Award for best first novel and was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

Wallace Earle Stegner was an American historian, novelist, short story writer, and environmentalist. Some call him "The Dean of Western Writers."

Peter Hedges (born July 6, 1962) is an American novelist, screenwriter, and film director. Hedges grew up in West Des Moines, Iowa, and attended Valley High School, where he was involved in the theater department, including the improv group and the mime troupe, "The Baker's Dozen." He later went to the North Carolina School of the Arts. His novel "What's Eating Gilbert Grape" was adapted into a critically acclaimed movie of the same title, …

Robert Coover (born February 4, 1932) is an American author and professor in the Literary Arts program at Brown University. He is generally considered a writer of fabulation and metafiction. Coover was born in Charles City, Iowa. He attended Southern Illinois University Carbondale, received his B.A. in Slavic Studies from Indiana University in 1955, then served in the United States Navy.

Dow Mossman, born in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, is an American writer. Mossman studied at Coe College for two years, finished college at the University of Iowa and received his M.A. from the Iowa Writers' Workshop in 1969. His novel, "The Stones of Summer", was published by Bobbs-Merrill and Popular Library in 1972. Following the publication of "The Stones of Summer", Dow was mentally exhausted and spent several months in an Iowa sanitorium.

William McGuire "Bill" Bryson, OBE, (born December 8,1951) is a best-selling American-born author of humorous books on travel, as well as books on the English language and on scientific subjects. He has lived for most of his adult life in England.

Ted Kooser ('62 English and speech) has elevated Iowa State University's prominence in the literary arts more than any other graduate in the university's history. Kooser, an Ames, Iowa, native who now lives in Garland, Nebraska, has written 11 books of poetry, two nonfiction books, and 11 special edition works since 1969. Kooser is best known for his poetry.

Michael Gartner (born October 25, 1938, in Des Moines, Iowa) is an American journalist and businessman. He is also President of the Iowa Board of Regents. He is a graduate of Carleton College and the New York University School of Law. His long career in journalism began in the sports department of the "Des Moines Register" at the age of 15. Eventually, he became page one editor of "The Wall Street Journal" (1960-1974), …

Max Allan Collins (born March 3, 1948) is a prolific American mystery writer who has been called "mystery's Renaissance man". He has written novels, screenplays, comic books, comic strips, trading cards, short stories, movie novelizations and historical fiction. He wrote the graphic novel "Road to Perdition" (which was developed into a film in 2002), created the comic book private eye "Ms.

Susan Glaspell was an American novelist and Pulitzer prize winning playwright. As part of the Provincetown Players, she arranged for the first ever reading of a play by Eugene O'Neill. Susan Keating Glaspell was born in Davenport, Iowa in 1876 (the ersatz birth year of 1882 is sometimes seen). She earned a Bachelors degree from Drake University in 1899 and went to work as a reporter in Des Moines. She sold her first short stories to women's magazines and her first novel, …

David Drake (born September 24, 1945) is a successful author of science fiction and fantasy literature. A Vietnam War veteran who has worked as a lawyer, he is now one of the premier authors of the military science fiction subgenre. Drake graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Iowa, majoring in history (with honors) and Latin. His studies at Duke University School of Law were interrupted for two years by the U.S. Army, …

Neal Town Stephenson (born October 31, 1959) is an American writer, known primarily for his science fiction works in the postcyberpunk genre with a penchant for explorations of society, mathematics, currency, and the history of science. He also writes non-fiction articles about technology in publications such as "Wired Magazine", and has worked part-time as an advisor for Blue Origin, a company (funded by Jeff Bezos) developing a manned sub-orbital launch system.

Raphael Aloysius Lafferty (November 7, 1914 - March 18, 2002) was a noted science fiction and fantasy writer of Irish descent, famous for his original use of language, metaphor, and narrative structure, as well as for his etymological wit. He also wrote a set of four autobiographical novels, "In a Green Tree"; a history book, "The Fall of Rome"; and a number of novels that could be more or less loosely called historical fiction.

Robert James Waller (b. August 1 1939, Rockford, Iowa) is an American author also known for his work as a photographer and musician. Several of his books have been on the "New York Times" bestseller list including 1992's "The Bridges of Madison County" which was the top best-seller in 1993. Both that novel and his 1995 novel, "Puerto Vallarta Squeeze", have both been made into motion pictures. Waller currently resides in Texas.

Carl Van Vechten (June 17, 1880 - December 21, 1964) was an American writer and photographer who was a patron of the Harlem Renaissance and the literary executor of Gertrude Stein.

Bess Streeter Aldrich (b. 1881 - d. 1954) was an American author. Bess Streeter was born in Cedar Falls, Iowa. After graduating from Iowa State Normal School, she taught school at several locations in the west, later returning to Cedar Falls to earn an advanced degree in education. A writer since early childhood, she won a writing contest at age fourteen and another at seventeen. In 1906, she married Charles Aldrich.

Sara Paretsky (b. June 8, 1947 in Ames, Iowa) is a contemporary American author of detective fiction. Paretsky was raised in Kansas. She graduated from the University of Kansas with a degree in political science. She did community service work on the south side of Chicago in 1966 and returned in 1968 to work there. She ultimately completed a Ph.D. in history at the University of Chicago, writing on The Breakdown of Moral Philosophy in New England Before the Civil War, …

Rob Borsellino (June 20, 1949 - May 27, 2006), was a newspaper columnist who achieved celebrity status throughout the state of Iowa before his death in May 2006. His articles for the "Des Moines Register", which appeared three times weekly, became wildly popular due to Borsellino's colloquial writing style and ability to tell a story straight from the heart. His columns appeared several times in such publications as "USA Today", "Chicago Tribune", …

David Allan Evans (born 1940) is an American poet and, since 2002, the poet laureate of the U.S. state of South Dakota. Born in Sioux City, Iowa, Evans attended college on a football scholarship and earned degrees from Morningside College, the University of Iowa and the University of Arkansas (M.F.A. in creative writing). Since 1968, Evans has taught at South Dakota State University, where he is a Professor of English and a Writer-in-Residence.

Hugh Sidey was an American journalist and worked for "Life" magazine starting in 1955, then moved on to "Time" magazine in 1957. Born in Greenfield, Iowa, in 1927, he attended Iowa State College and graduated with a B.S. in journalism. After graduation he worked for local newspapers in Council Bluffs and Omaha. While in Omaha, he taught undergraduate journalism classes at Creighton University where he was exposed to frequent, …

James Norman Hall was an American author best known for the novel "Mutiny on the Bounty".

Mildred Wirt Benson (born July 10, 1905, died May 29, 2002) was an American author of children's books, in particular several Nancy Drew mysteries. Writing under Stratemeyer Syndicate pen name Carolyn Keene from 1929 to 1947, she contributed to 23 of the first 25, originally published, Nancy Drew mysteries. She was one of 28 individuals who helped produce the Syndicate's Nancy Drew mystery books from 1929 to 1984.

John Hartzell Spence (February 15 1908 - May 9 2001) was an American writer and founding editor of Yank, the Army Weekly, a weekly magazine published by the United States military during World War II. He is credited with coining the term "pin ups". Born in Marion, Iowa, he studied journalism at the University of Iowa graduating in 1930. In 1930, he started working with the United Press until World War II when he became editor of Yank.

David William Rabe (born March 10 1940 in Dubuque, Iowa) is an American playwright and screenwriter. He is best known for his loose trilogy of plays drawing on his experiences as an Army draftee in Vietnam, "Sticks and Bones" (1969), the Tony Award-winning " The Basic Training of Pavlo Hummel" (1971), and "Streamers" (1976). He has also written "Hurlyburly" (both the play and the screenplay for the film version), …

Osha Gray Davidson is a writer who focuses on natural history, race relations and other social and human rights issues. He was born in Passaic, NJ in 1954 and grew up in Iowa, studying at the University of Iowa. Osha Gray Davidson's books and articles cover a wide range of topics. A regular contributor to "Rolling Stone" magazine, his work has also appeared in the "New York Times", the "Washington Post", "Salon", …

John Robinson Pierce (March 27, 1910 - April 2, 2002), was an American engineer and author. He worked extensively in the fields of radio communication, computer music, and science fiction. Born in Iowa, he earned his Ph.D. from Caltech, and died in Sunnyvale, California. He wrote on electronics and information theory, and developed jointly the concept of Pulse code modulation (PCM) with his Bell Labs colleagues Barney Oliver and Claude Shannon.

Robert Jones Burdette (30 July, 1844-19 November, 1914) was an American humorist and clergyman, who became famous through his paragraphs in the "Burlington" (Iowa) "Hawkeye".

James Stevens was an American author and composer. Among his literary works were "Brawny Man" (1926), "Mattock" (1927), "Homer in the Sagebrush" (1928), "The Saginaw Paul Bunyan" (1932), "Paul Bunyan Bears" (1947), "Big Jim Turner" (1948), and "Tree Treasure" (1950). His song "The Frozen Logger" was recorded by Odetta/Odetta & Larry on The Tin Angel (1954), Cisco Houston on Hard Travelin' (1954), Walt Robertson on American Northwest Ballads (1955), …

Eugene Burdick (12 December 1918 - 26 July 1965), was co-author of "The Ugly American" (1958), "Fail-Safe" (1962) and "The 480" (1965). Born in Sheldon, Iowa he moved to Los Angeles, California at the age of 4. Burdick attended Stanford University and Oxford University where he earned a Ph.D. degree in psychology. In 1956 his critically acclaimed novel "The Ninth Wave", a Houghton Mifflin Literary Fellowship winner, was published.

Verlyn Klinkenborg (born 1952, Boulder, CO) is an American non-fiction author. As of 1997, he has been a member of the editorial board for "The New York Times". His books include "The Rural Life", "Making Hay", "The Last Fine Time", and "Timothy; or, Notes of an Abject Reptile". He has published articles in "The New Yorker", "Harper's Magazine", "Esquire", "National Geographic", "Mother Jones", …

Merle Miller was an American novelist best known for his biographies of Presidents Harry Truman and Lyndon Johnson. Three years before his best-selling book "Plain Speaking, An Oral Biography of Harry S. Truman" (1974), he wrote a personal account "What It Means to Be a Homosexual" published in "The New York Times Magazine" January 17, 1971.

Pauline Phillips (born July 4, 1918 as Pauline "Popo" Esther Friedman) founded "Dear Abby" in 1956. The current Dear Abby is her first-born child and only daughter, Jeanne Phillips, who now writes under the pen name of Abigail Van Buren, which was also used by Pauline. She also has a son, Edward Jay Phillips. Pauline Esther Friedman Phillips was an identical twin; her sister, Esther Pauline Friedman Lederer, …

Ned Shank (February 19, 1956 - November 30, 2000) was an historic preservationist, an essayist, and the author of one children's book, "The Sanyasin's First Day". He was married to the writer Crescent Dragonwagon, and with her owned Dairy Hollow House, an award-winning country inn and restaurant in Eureka Springs, Arkansas The couple also co-founded the nonprofit Writer's Colony at Dairy Hollow. A sixth-generation Bay Area native, he was born in Oakland, California, …

Bruce B. Brugmann is editor and publisher of the "San Francisco Bay Guardian," a weekly alternative newspaper published in San Francisco. He co-founded the newspaper with his wife, Jean Dibble, in 1966. Brugmann was born in Rock Rapids, Iowa. He earned a bachelor's degree from the University of Nebraska, where he was editor of the college newspaper, and a master's degree from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

Mark Salter is an American writer from Davenport, Iowa known for his collaborations with United States Senator John McCain on several nonfiction books as well as political speeches. Aside from having worked on Senator McCain's staff for seventeen years (as of 2006), Salter has also worked with McCain on the books "Why Courage Matters", "Faith Of My Fathers", "Worth the Fighting For", and "Character is Destiny".

Richard Pike Bissell was an author of short stories and novels, one of which, "7 1/2 Cents", was turned into the Broadway musical "The Pajama Game." This won him (along with co-author George Abbott) the 1955 Tony Award for Best Musical. Bissell was born and died in Dubuque, Iowa. Between those events, Bissell attended prep school in New Hampshire, graduated from Harvard University, worked on a freighter on the American Export Business Lines and riverboats, …

Marquis W. Childs was an American journalist.

Dennis Augustin Mahony (b. January 20 1821, Rosscarbery, County Cork, Ireland - d. November 6, 1879) was one of the founders of the Dubuque "Herald" (now the "Telegraph Herald"), a newspaper in Dubuque, Iowa, during the American Civil War. Mahony was born in Rosscarbery, County Cork, Ireland. At the age of 9, he emigrated with his family to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1831. He studied theology and law before moving to Iowa in 1843, …