About Mark Twain
Mark Twain, pseudonym of Samuel L. Clemens (1835–1910), was born in Florida, Missouri, and grew up in Hannibal on the west bank of the Mississippi River. He attended school briefly and then at age thirteen became a full-time apprentice to a local printer. When his older brother Orion established the Hannibal Journal, Samuel became a compositor for that paper and then, for a time, an itinerant printer. With a commission to write comic travel letters, he traveled down the Mississippi. Smitten with the riverboat life, he signed on as an apprentice to a steamboat pilot. After 1859, he became a licensed pilot, but two years later the Civil War put an end to the steam-boat traffic.
In 1861, he and his brother traveled to the Nevada Territory where Samuel became a writer for the Virginia City Territorial Enterprise, and there, on February 3, 1863, he signed a humorous account with the pseudonym Mark Twain. The name was a river man’s term for water “two fathoms deep” and thus just barely safe for navigation.
In 1870 Twain married and moved with his wife to Hartford, Connecticut. He became a highly successful lecturer in the United States and England, and he continued to write.
About Willa Cather
Willa Cather was probably born in Virginia in 1873, although her parents did not register the date, and it is probably incorrectly given on her tombstone. Because she is so famous for her Nebraska novels, many people assume she was born there, but Willa Cather was about nine years old when her family moved to a small Nebraska frontier town called Red Cloud that was populated by immigrant Swedes, Bohemians, Germans, Poles, Czechs, and Russians. The oldest of seven children, she was educated at home, studied Latin with a neighbor, and read the English classics in the evening. By the time she went to the University of Nebraska in 1891–where she began by wearing boy’s clothes and cut her hair close to her head–she had decided to be a writer.
About Zane Grey
The father of the western novel, Zane Grey (1872 - 1939) was born in Zanesville, Ohio. He wrote 58 westerns, including Spirit of the Border, Wildfire, and Riders of the Purple Sage, as well as almost 30 other books. Over 130 films have been based on his work.
About Bret Harte
Bret Harte was born in Albany, New York, in 1836 and was raised in New York City. He had no formal education, but he inherited a love for books. In 1857, Harte moved to California and eventually wrote for the San Franciscan Golden Era paper. There he published his first condensed novels, which were brilliant parodies of the works of well-known authors, such as Dickens and Cooper. Later, he became clerk in the U.S. branch mint. This job gave Harte time to also work for the Overland Monthly, where he published his world-famous "Luck of the Roaring Camp" and commissioned Mark Twain to write weekly articles.
In 1871, Harte was hired by the Atlantic Monthly for $10,000 to write twelve stories a year, which was the highest figure paid to an American writer at the time. He moved to New England after resigning a professorship at the University of California. There he was welcomed as an equal by such writers as Longfellow and Holmes, and he received continued praise for his works. However, laden with personal and family difficulties, his work suffered. In 1878, after an unsuccessful attempt on the lecture circuit, Harte accepted consulships in Germany and, later, Scotland. In 1885, he retired to London, where he died in 1902.
About Max Brand
Max Brand® (1892–1944) is the best-known pen name of widely acclaimed author Frederick Faust, creator of Destry, Dr. Kildare, and other beloved fictional characters. He became one of the most prolific writers of our time but abandoned writing at age fifty-one to become a war correspondent in World War II, where he was killed while serving in Italy.
About Stephen Crane
Stephen Crane (1871 - 1900) was a war correspondent, novelist, short story writer and poet. He is the author of Maggie, The Red Badge of Courage, George's Mother and The Black Riders. Ernest Hemingway on The Red Badge of Courage: "One of the finest books of our literature…it is all as much of one piece as a great poem is."
About Bronson Pinchot
Bronson Pinchot, an Audie Award–winning narrator and Audible’s Narrator of the Year for 2010, received his education at Yale University. He restores Greek Revival buildings and appears in television, film, and on stage whenever the pilasters and entablatures overwhelm him.
About Richard Waterhouse
Richard Waterhouse is an actor, teacher, director, and producer who is featured in the Hallmark Christmas classic Moonlight and Mistletoe and the independent feature Karl Rove, I Love You.
About Meredith Mitchell
Meredith Mitchell is an actress who has performed in such films as Mona Lisa Smile and The Reunion, on stage with Shakespeare & Company and the New Repertory Theatre, and on television on Good Morning America. She received her BA in psychology from Emory University and her MFA in acting from Brandeis University.
About Mark Peckham
Mark Peckham is an actor and director based in Rhode Island. In addition to working with Trinity Rep, Virginia Stage Co., and many Boston-area theaters, he was the voice of Joseph Smith in the award-winning PBS documentary American Prophet with Gregory Peck.
About Barry Press
Barry Press, an active professional actor, director, and teacher for over thirty-five years, has performed Off-Broadway and at numerous regional theaters. The winner of an AudioFile Earphones Award, Barry has been an active voice talent for books in a variety of genres. Barry is also the founder and artistic director of Living Literature, a Rhode Island-based literacy program.
