Authors

Crime Author Sentenced to Death in China

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Liu Yongbiao is an acclaimed crime novelist in China. He and another man killed four people 23 years ago, and Liu used the memory of the murders to write a novel. How crazy is that! Because of new DNA testing, investigators were finally able to trace the murders to the novelist, and he and his accomplice were sentenced to death.

The memories weighed on Liu and he said that they were “so cruel” he deserved to “die 100 times” for committing them. Read the full story on Newsweek.

Writers Who Died in 2017

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  1. Brian Aldiss – English author, vice-president of the international H. G. Wells Society
  2. Buchi Emecheta – Nigerian novelist
  3. Colin Dexter – English author of the Inspector Morse series
  4. Denis Johnson – American writer of Jesus’ Son: Stories
  5. Derek Walcott – Saint Lucian poet and playwright who received the 1992 Nobel Prize in Literature
  6. Harry Matthews – American writer of novels, poetry, short fiction, and essays
  7. Helen Dunmore – British poet, novelist, and children’s writer
  8. Howard Frank Mosher – American novelist
  9. Janusz Glowacki – Polish-U.S. playwright and screenwriter
  10. John Ashbery – American Pulitzer Prize-winning poet
  11. John Berger – English art critic, novelist, painter, and poet
  12. Michael Bond – English writer, creator of Paddington Bear
  13. Miriam Tlali – South African novelist, the first black woman in South Africa to publish a novel
  14. Paula Fox – American award-winning children’s author
  15. Peter Abrahams – South African novelist, journalist, and political commentator
  16. Robert James Waller – American author of The Bridges of Madison County
  17. Robert M. Pirsig  – American writer and philosopher, and the author of  Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
  18. Sam Shepard – American Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright
  19. Sue Grafton – American crime writer, author of the ‘alphabet series’, starting with “A” is for Alibi
  20. William H. Gass – American novelist, short story writer, essayist, and critic
  21. William Melvin Kelley – African-American novelist
  22. William Peter Blatty – American writer and filmmaker, famous for The Exorcist

from Amanda on Writing