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Literary St. Louis
Resources:
Mercantile Library – Literary St. Louis: A Research Guide
Many St. Louis writers are honored on the St. Louis Walk of Fame in the University City Loop area on Delmar Blvd.
Wikipedia includes authors in “Famous Residents Past and Present” under their listing for St. Louis, Missouri at
Other internet resources:
Missouri’s Literary Heritage
Missouri Center for the Book
St. Louis Public Library
The Center for the Humanities: Dedicated to Letters and Humanistic Research and Their Presence in the Public Life at Washington University. The Center publishes a calendar of literary events.
Left Bank Books – The only independent book store in St. Louis has a full calendar of readings and book signings on their web site at
1. Eugene Field – Poet and Newspaper Columnist
Born 1850 – Died 1895
Eugene Field was known as “The Children’s Poet” for his verses such as "Little Boy Blue" and "Wynken, Blynken, and Nod." He was also considered to be the first newspaper columnist. His father Roswell Martin Field was the attorney for Dred Scott.
You may visit the Eugene Field House and Toy Museum in Downtown St. Louis.
634 South Broadway
St. Louis, MO 63102
314-421-4689
Adults $4.00 Children under 12 $.50.
2. Tennessee Williams – Playwright
Born 1911 – Died 1983
Tennessee Williams moved to St. Louis in 1918. He attended Soldan High School and both University of Missouri and Washington University in St. Louis. His early plays were first produced here and the Glass Menagerie was set in St. Louis. The original house is still standing in the Central West End. He is buried in Calvary Cemetery in St. Louis.
3. Williams Burroughs – Novelist
Born 1914 – Died 1997
Burroughs was born in St. Louis and attended the John Burroughs School. He was a cub reporter for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch in 1935. Burroughs, Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg formed the core of the "Beat Generation" of writers and poets. Burroughs was the author of Naked Lunch.
4. Martha Gellhorn –Novelist, Journalist & War Correspondent
Born 1908 – Died 1998
Martha Gellhorn attended the John Burroughs School in St. Louis. She covered every major war from the Spanish Civil War in 1937 to the Central American struggles of the 1990’s.
5. Kate Chopin – Novelist and Short Story Writer
Born 1850 – Died 1904
Kate Chopin was born in St. Louis and attended St. Louis Academy of the Sacred Heart. She wrote more than 100 short stories in the 1890s, and hosted a literary salon in her home at 3317 Morgan Street. Her most famous novel, The Awakening was controversial in its day. Louis in 1850. She died in 1904 and is buried in Calvary Cemetery in St. Louis.
6. T. S. Eliot – Poet
Born 1888 – Died 1965
Eliot was born into a prominent St. Louis family. William Greenleaf Eliot, Eliot's grandfather helped found Washington University in St. Louis. His poem “The Waste Land” is one of the most influential works of the twentieth century. Other notable works include "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," "The Hollow Men," "Ash Wednesday," and "Four Quartets." He received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1948, and the American Medal of Freedom in 1965.
7. Jane Smiley –Novelist
Born 1949 –
Jane Smiley grew up in St. Louis where she attended the John Burrough’s School. Her best-selling A Thousand Acres received the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1992.
8. Irma Rombauer – Cookbook Writer
Born 1877 – Died 1962
Mrs. Rombauer was the author of The Joy of Cooking, which she first privately published it in 1931 in St. Louis, Missouri. It is one of the world's most-published cookbooks having been in print continuously since 1936.
9. Sara Teasdale – Poet
Born 1884 – Died 1933
Sara Teasdale was born in St. Louis in 1884 and lived both on Lindell Blvd. and on Kingsbury Place. She began writing poems while attending Mary Institute. Teasdale wrote several collections of poetry in the following decade and became known for the intensity of her lyrics. In 1918 she won the Columbia University Poetry Society prize (the forerunner of the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry) for her volume, Love Songs. She is buried in Bellefontaine Cemetery at 4947 West Florissant, St. Louis.
10. Howard Nemerov – Poet
Born 1920 - Died 1991
Howard Nemerov was United States Poet Laureate 1963- 1964 and 1988- 1990. The Collected Poems of Howard Nemerov won the National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize. Nemerov was awarded the Bollingen Prize for Poetry, a Guggenheim fellowship, and the first Aiken Taylor Award for Modern American Poetry. He was the Edward Mallinckrodt Distinguished University Professor of English at Washington University in St. Louis where he began teaching in 1969.
11. Mona Van Duyn – Poet
Born 1921 – Died 2004
Mona Van Duyn was the U.S. poet laureate between 1992 and 1993. Van Duyn won every major U.S. prize for poetry, including the National Book Award, the Bollingen Prize, the Ruth Lilly Prize and the Pulitzer Prize. With her husband Jarvis Thurston, a professor of English literature, Van Duyn enjoyed a long association with Washington University in St. Louis. Together they published Perspective: A Quarterly of Literature.
12. William Gass - Novelist, Essayist and Critic
Born 1924 -
William Gass joined the Washington University faculty in 1969 and received an endowed chair in 1979. He is currently professor emeritus at Washington University. Gass is known for his novels Omensetter's Luck and The Tunnel and for his classic book of short stories In the Heart of the Heart of the Country. Two essay collections earned National Book Critics Circle Awards for Criticism. A distinguished artist deeply concerned with the issues writers face, William Gass was named director of the International Writers Center in 1990.
13. Stanley Elkin – Novelist
Born 1930 – Died 1995
Stanley Elkin was a member of Washington University's English faculty from 1960 until his in 1995. He won the National Book Critics Circle Award for his novel George Mills (1983).
14. Marianne Moore– Poet
Born 1887 – Died 1972
Born 1887 in Kirkwood, a suburb of St. Louis. Her Collected Poems of 1951 is perhaps her most rewarded work; it earned the poet the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, and the Bollingen Prize.
15. Jonathan Franzen – Novelist and Essayist
Born 1959 -
Much of his work is based on his childhood in Webster Groves, a suburb of St. Louis, including The Twenty Seventh City (a reference to St. Louis) and The Corrections.
16. Maya Angelou –Poet
Born 1928 -
Born in St. Louis, Ms Angelou is known for her autobiographical writings, such as I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings ( 1969) and All God's Children Need Traveling Shoes ( 1986). Her volume of poetry, Just Give Me a Cool Drink of Water 'Fore I Die ( 1971) was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize, and she has published numerous other collections of verse.
17. A. E. Hotchner – Screenwriter and Biographer
Born 1920 -
Mr. Hotchner was born in St. Louis and attended Washington University (LA and JD, 1940). He briefly practiced law in St. Louis before writing for magazines, television, and the stage. He has also written novels and a biography of Ernest Hemingway, Papa Hemingway. His memoir of growing up in St. Louis during the Depression, King of the Hill, was made into a movie by Steven Soderberg. Washington University houses The Hotchner Papers which consist primarily of material relating to Ernest Hemingway. Washington University also houses the A. E Hotchner Studio Theatre and holds the A. E. Hotchner Playwriting Competition.
18.Laurell Kaye Hamilton - Novelist
Born 1963 -
Ms. Hamilton is a horror and fantasy writer. In her Anita Blake Series, Laurell K. Hamilton has created an alternate St. Louis where vampires own nightclubs on Laclede’s Landing. Ms Hamilton lives in St. Louis County.
19.Kay Thompson – Playwright and Children’s Writer
Born 1908 – Died 1998
Kay Thompson was born in St. Louis and attended Soldan High and Washington University. She was an author, composer, musician, actress and singer. She began her career writing screenplays and scenarios for silent films, and eventually moved on to write and compose Broadway plays and musicals. Thompson, who lived at the Plaza Hotel, is most notable as the author of the Eloise series of children's books. The four books, illustrated by Hilary Knight, were Eloise ( 1956), Eloise in Paris ( 1957), Eloise at Christmastime (1958), and Eloise in Moscow (1959), followed the adventures of the precocious daughter of the Plaza's manager.
20. Mark Twain –Novelist
Born 1935 – Died 1910
Samuel Clemens was born in Florida, Missouri. While he was still a baby, the family moved to the river town of Hannibal, Missouri (north of St. Louis) where he later set The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Clemens traveled to St. Louis to work as a printer but his love of river life led him to become a steamboat pilot on the Mississippi, an experience he wrote about in his book Life on the Mississippi (1883).
21. Michael Kahn –Mystery Writer and Attorney
Michael Kahn writes a series of mysteries about St. Louis trial attorney Rachel Gold. He is an attorney with the firm of Blackwell Sanders Peper Martin LLP.
22. Eddy Harris – Travel Writer
St. Louis writer Eddy Harris chronicled his river trip down the length of the river in Mississippi Solo: A River Quest. His works focus on African-American issues and include South of Haunted Dreams: A Ride Through Slavery's Old BackYard, Still Life in Harlem and Native Stranger.
23. Elaine Viets –Mystery Writer
Elaine Viets is a former St. Louis Post newspaper columnist. Her Francesca Vierling mysteries are set in South St. Louis.
24. Daniel Stolar –Short Story Writer
Daniel Stolar’s debut story collection, The Middle of the Night is set largely in St. Louis.
25. Ntozake Shange - Playwright
Born 1948 -
Ms Shange is best-known for her Obie Award winning play For Colored s Who Have Considered /when the rainbow is enuf. Among her honors and awards are fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Fund, and a Pushcart Prize. When she was eight, Shange's family moved to St. Louis at the time of school integration and bussing. Her novel, Betsy Brown, was based on that experience.
26. Paulette Jiles – Novelist and Poet
A Missouri writer, her novel, Enemy Women was set in Civil War era Missouri. Parts of the novel take place in St. Louis.
27. William Inge – Playwright
Born 1913 – Died 1973
William Inge came to St. Louis as the Star-Times drama critic in 1943. Encouraged and inspired by Tennessee Williams, Inge finished his first play in 1947. Inge taught at Washington University from 1946-1949. He wrote the award winning Come Back, Little Sheba. Like Bus Stop (1955) and the Pulitzer Prize-winning Picnic (1953). His screenplay Splendor In the Grass won an Academy Award in 1962.
28. Bill Mauldin – Editorial Cartoonist
Born 1921 – Died 2003
His cartoons for Stars and Stripes during World War II won Bill Mauldin a 1945 Pulitzer Prize. A self-styled "stirrer-upper," Mauldin joined the St. Louis Post-Dispatch in 1958. Dubbed "the hottest editorial brush in the U.S.," he won his second Pulitzer Prize that year. Syndicated in over 250 newspapers, Bill Mauldin battled injustice and pretense with irony and humor.
29. Joseph Pulitzer – Newspaper Publisher
Born 1847 – Died 1911
Pulitzer bought the bankrupt St. Louis Dispatch newspaper in 1878 and soon merged it with the Evening Post to form the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Pulitzer, an exponent of high journalistic standards, endowed the Columbia School of Journalism. His greatest legacy is his annual award for excellence in journalism - the Pulitzer Prize. The St. Louis Post Dispatch continues today as the only daily newspaper for St. Louis.
30. Harold Ramis – Screenwriter
Born 1944 -
Harold Ramis attended Washington University in St. Louis and graduated in 1966. Inspired by life in a fraternity house on Forsyth Boulevard, Ramis co-wrote the 1978 collegiate farce Animal House. He also wrote Stripes and Ghostbusters, and Groundhog Day. He is a dedicated Washington University alumnus and member of its board.
31. Sally Benson – Short Story Writer
Born 1897 – Died 1972
Sally Benson was a St. Louis-born screenwriter and short-story writer. Her series "Kensington Stories" originally published in New York Magazine in 1941 became the book, film and musical, Meet Me in St. Louis. She wrote the screenplays for “Anna and the King of Siam,” “Bus Stop,” and “National Velvet.”
32. Glenn Savant – Novelist
Born 1953 – Died 2003
His novel White Palace was made into a film in 1990. Much of this movie was filmed on location in St. Louis.
33. Eileen Dreyer – Mystery Writer
Eileen Dreyer is a forensic specialist who spent 16 years as a trauma nurse before she turned to writing. She lives in St. Louis, MO. Her mysteries include Head Case and Brain .
34. Donald Finkel – Poet
Born 1929 -
Donald Finkel and his wife, poet Constance Urdang, moved to Washington University in St. Louis in 1960 where he became poet in residence. He has published ten volumes of poetry. Mr. Finkel retired from Washington University in 1991, but continues to live in St. Louis.
35. John Lutz – Mystery Writer
Two-time Shamus Award-winner John Lutz has produced more than 30 novels and 200 short stories. His SWF Seeks Same was the basis for the 1992 movie Single White Female. He lives in Webster Groves, Missouri. His series of mysteries featuring Detective Alo Nudger are set in St. Louis.
36. Robert Randisi – Mystery Writer
His Joe Keough series (also known as the Arch series) are set in St. Louis (except for the first in the series.)
37 - Patricia and Fredrick McKissack – Children’s Books
Patricia and Fredrick McKissack, write books for young people. Their historical works and biographies of important African Americans, have won the Coretta Scott King Award, and Newbery and Caldecott honor awards.
38. David Carkeet – Novelist
David Carkeet taught linguistics and writing at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. He also directed the MFA program there and edited its literary journal, Natural Bridge. He is the author of five novels including, Double Negative, and The Greatest Slump of All Time. He has also written two novels for young s, short stories and essays.
39. Fannie Hurst - Short story writer, novelist, playwright, and screenwriter
Fannie Hurst was born in St. Louis and graduated from Washington University . Many of her novels including Back Street and Imitation of Life where made into movies.
40. Gerald Early – Essayist
Dr. Early is the Director of the Center for the Humanities and the Merle Kling Professor of Modern Letters at Washington University. He is the editor of several books including Lure and Loathing: Essays on Race, Identity, and the Ambivalence of Assimilation (1993); One Nation Under a Groove; Motown and American ure (1994), and The ure of Bruising: Essays on Prizefighting, Literature, and Modern American ure, which won the 1994 National Book Critics Circle Award for criticism.
41. Ridley Pearson – Mystery writer
Cut and Run features Roland Larson, a U.S. marshal in St. Louis.
January 30, 2006 | 
Nitty Gritty
Savor St. Louis