Famous Writers a to z

Melissa Rycroft is known for her engagement and break-up on the 13th season of The Bachelor, and for winning 2012's Dancing with the Stars: All-Stars.

Andy Samberg is a comedian, actor, singer and a star of Saturday Night Live. His comedy troupe "The Lonely Island" is known for its humorous digital shorts.

Ancient Greek lyric poet Sappho lived on the island of Lesbos, from which the term lesbian was derived, and wrote poetry expressing her love of women.

Actor and comedian Rob Schneider's is best known for his combination of self-deprecating humor and goofball antics in films like Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo.

Charles Schulz was a cartoonist best known for creating the one of the world's most successful comic strips, Peanuts.

Comedian and writer Amy Sedaris is known for her outrageous stage and television characters. She is the younger sister of writer David Sedaris.

David Sedaris is a humorist and essayist best known for his sardonic autobiographical stories and social commentary.

Anna Sewell was the British author of the classic children's horse story Black Beauty.

Emmy Award-winning British actress Jane Seymour starred on the dramatic TV series Dr. Quinn: Medicine Woman, and was in the James Bond film Live and Let Die.

Dr. Anna Howard Shaw was the first female minister in the Methodist Protestant Church. She spent most of her life working for the cause of women's suffrage.

Jamie Lynn-Sigler is an American actress best known for her role as Meadow Soprano on the HBO series The Sopranos.

Peter Singer is an Australian philosopher whose work in applied ethics has led to controversial views on abortion, animal liberation and infanticide.

J.C.L. Simonde de Sismondi was an 18th-19th century economist and author who espoused pioneering ideas on governmental structures.

Patti Smith is a highly influential figure in the New York City punk rock scene, starting with her 1975 album Horses. Her biggest hit is the single "Because the Night."

Stephen Sondheim is one of Broadway’s most successful and revered composers, responsible for works like Follies, A Little Night Music and Sweeney Todd.

Ted Sorensen was an American presidential adviser and speech writer, best known for his contributions to President John F. Kennedy's most famous speeches.

St Jerome was a 4th-century religious scholar and ascetic who’s responsible for the Vulgate, the Catholic Church’s Latin version of the Bible’s Old Testament.

Jon Stewart is the host of Comedy Central's The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, which dubs itself "the most trusted name in fake news" and has run for nearly 20 seasons.

Sir Tom Stoppard is a Czech-born British playwright whose famous works include Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (1964) and Every Good Boy Deserves Favour (1978). He co-wrote the screenplay for the 1998 Academy Award winning film Shakespeare in Love. 

Rex Stout was an American crime writer best known as the man who brought the world the fictional New York City detective Nero Wolfe.

Harriet Beecher Stowe was an author and social activist best known for her popular anti-slavery novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin.

Preston Sturges is regarded as the first Hollywood figure to successfully move from screenwriting to directing his own scripts.

Margaret Suckley was a close friend and confidante of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and served as the archivist for the first American presidential library.

Jonathan Swift was an Irish author and satirist. Best known for writing Gulliver's Travels, he was dean of St. Patrick's Cathedral in Dublin.

Lily Tomlin is an actress and comedian known for roles on TV shows such as Laugh-In and films such as Nashville.

Margaret Truman, daughter of Harry Truman, became a singer and writer in her own right.

Ivana Trump was once the glamorous wife of real estate mogul Donald Trump.

An adventurer and wily intellectual, Mark Twain wrote the classic American novels The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

Irish author Colm Tóibín is famous for literary works about Irish society, creativity and homosexuality. His most popular novels include The Blackwater Lightship and The Master.

Peter Ustinov was an English actor, writer and director who is known for his Oscar-winning performances in Spartacus (1960) and Topkapi (1964).

Pauline Phillips, best known by the pen name "Abigail Van Buren," was one of America's most adored advice columnists as the author of "Dear Abby." She was the twin sister of columnist Ann Landers.

Dick Van Dyke is an American actor and comedian best known for hosting The Dick Van Dyke Show. He's also known for starring on Diagnosis Murder and for roles in films like Mary Poppins, Dick Tracy and Night at the Museum.

Known for her fashion design and tumultuous personal life, actress, writer and artist Gloria Vanderbilt became an iconic figure in American popular culture during the 20th century.

Author Voltaire wrote the satirical novella Candide and, despite controversy during his lifetime, is widely considered one of France's greatest Enlightenment writers.

David Walker was an African American abolitionist whose pamphlet was one of the most radical documents of the antislavery movement.

Simone Weil was a French intellectual, activist and Christian Mystic.

Actress Lisa Whelchel co-starred in the popular 1980s sitcom The Facts of Life.

Elie Wiesel is a Nobel-Prize winning writer, teacher and activist known for the memoir Night, in which he recounts his experiences surviving the Holocaust.

Author Oscar Wilde published several acclaimed works, including The Picture of Dorian Gray and The Importance of Being Earnest.

Harvey Washington Wiley was an American chemist known as the "Father of the FDA." Throughout much of his career, Wiley campaigned for reforms in food manufacturing and in food labeling.

Sarah Winnemucca was a member of the Native American Paiutes nation, an activist for her people and the first Native woman to publish in the English language.

Tom Wolfe is a journalist and best-selling author well known as a proponent of the New Journalism, using fiction-writing techniques in journalism.

Herman Wouk is best known for his novel The Caine Mutiny.

Pioneering African-American writer Richard Wright is best known for the classic texts Black Boy and Native Son.

Iannis Xenakis was a Greek avant-garde composer of electronic music and musique concrete.

William Butler Yeats was one of the greatest English-language poets of the 20th century and received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1923.

Stefan Zweig was an Austrian writer and novelist popular in the 1920s and 1930s.