American author Danielle Steel has written more than 160 books, with many of her best sellers turned into television movies.

Arthur Miller is considered one of the greatest American playwrights of the 20th century. His best-known plays include 'All My Sons,' 'The Crucible' and the Pulitzer Prize-winning 'Death of a Salesman.'

Harper Lee is best known for writing the Pulitzer Prize-winning bestseller 'To Kill a Mockingbird' and 'Go Set a Watchman,' which portrays the later years of the Finch family.

The movie ‘A Wrinkle in Time’ opens this weekend, an adaptation of the 1962 feminist science fiction book written by Madeleine L'Engle. The casting has been praised for its gender and racial diversity, featuring biracial actor Storm Reid, Oprah Winfrey and Mindy Kaling.

Maya Angelou was a civil rights activist, poet and award-winning author known for her acclaimed 1969 memoir, 'I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings', and her numerous poetry and essay collections.

Emily Dickinson was a reclusive American poet. Unrecognized in her own time, Dickinson is known posthumously for her innovative use of form and syntax.

Margaret Fuller is best known for feminist writing and literary criticism in 19th century America.

Jane Austen was a Georgian era author, best known for her social commentary in novels including 'Sense and Sensibility,' 'Pride and Prejudice' and 'Emma.'

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

Widely known for the book and miniseries 'Roots' as well as 'The Autobiography of Malcolm X,' Alex Haley was a U.S. writer whose works of historical fiction and reportage depicted generations of African-American lives.

Lin-Manuel Miranda is an award-winning actor, performer and writer known for his groundbreaking Broadway musicals 'In the Heights' and 'Hamilton.'

Ursula Le Guin, who pushed boundaries as a female writer in male-dominated fantasy and science fiction genres, has died at 88. The author was known for her novels including ‘The Left Hand of Darkness,’ ‘A Wizard of Earthsea,’ ‘The Tombs of Atuan’ and ‘The Farthest Shore.’

Writer and anthropologist Zora Neale Hurston was a fixture of the Harlem Renaissance and author of the masterwork 'Their Eyes Were Watching God.'

Alice Walker is a Pulitzer Prize-winning, African-American novelist and poet most famous for authoring 'The Color Purple.'

After being kidnapped from West Africa and enslaved in Boston, Phillis Wheatley became the first African American and one of the first women to publish a book of poetry in the colonies in 1773.

Playwright and activist Lorraine Hansberry wrote A Raisin in the Sun and was the first black playwright and the youngest American to win a New York Critics’ Circle award.

African-American playwright August Wilson won a Pulitzer Prize and a Tony Award for his play Fences, and earned a second Pulitzer Prize for The Piano Lesson.

Toni Morrison was a Nobel and Pulitzer Prize-winning American novelist. Among her best-known novels are 'The Bluest Eye,' 'Song of Solomon,' 'Beloved' and 'A Mercy.'

James Baldwin was an essayist, playwright, novelist and voice of the American civil rights movement known for works including 'Notes of a Native Son,' 'The Fire Next Time' and 'Go Tell It on the Mountain.'

Dale Carnegie is the author of How To Win Friends and Influence People, one of the bestselling self-help books of all time.

J.K. Rowling is the creator of the 'Harry Potter' fantasy series, one of the most popular book and film franchises in history.

Tony-winning director Ivo van Hove has just opened a stage adaptation of Ayn Rand’s breakthrough novel, “The Fountainhead” (1943), at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Fans of Rand’s vision of free-market fundamentalism include Paul Ryan, Rand Paul and President Trump.

Chinua Achebe is a Nigerian novelist and author of Things Fall Apart, a work that in part led to his being called the "patriarch of the African novel."

J.R.R. Tolkien is an internationally renowned fantasy writer. He is best known for authoring 'The Hobbit' and 'The Lord of the Rings' trilogy.