10/02 - Wallace Stevens - Pulitzer Prize-winning Poet
10/02 - Graham Greene - Novelist
10/03 - Gore Vidal - Writer; Playwright
10/04 - Jackie Collins - Novelist
10/04 - Anne Rice - Novelist
10/08 - Frank Herbert - "Dune"
10/08 - R. L. Stine - "Goosebumps"
10/11 - Steen Steensen Blicher - Short Story Writer; Poet
10/11 - Francois Mauriac - Novelist; Poet & Playwright; Nobel Prize-winner
10/11 - Elmore Leonard - Crime Writer
10/12 - Ann Lane Petry - Novelist, Short Story Writer
10/12 - Alice Childress - Novelist; "A Hero Ain't Nothin' But a Sandwich"; Playwright
10/14 - e. e. cummings - Poet & Playwright
10/15 - Virgil (70 B.C.) - (Roman) Poet
10/15 - Mario Puzo - Novelist; "The Godfather"
10/16 - Noah Webster - Compiler of first American language dictionary
10/16 - Oscar Wilde - Writer; Playwright; Poet
10/17 - Arthur Miller - Playwright; "Death of a Salesman"
10/18 - Ntozake Shange (aka Paulette Williams) - Novelist; Dramatist/Playwright; Poet; "colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf"
10/18 - Terry McMillan - Novelist; "Waiting to Exhale"
10/20 - Arthur Rimbaud - Poet
10/20 - Robert Pinsky - Former U.S. Poet Laureate; "The Night Game"
10/21 - Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Poet; "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner"
10/21 - Alphonse Lamartine - Poet
10/21 - Ursula K. Le Guin - Science-Fiction Writer
10/22 - Doris Lessing - Novelist
10/24 - Denise Levertov - Poet
10/25 - John Berryman - Poet
10/26 - Pat Conroy - Novelist; "The Water is Wide"; "The Prince of Tides"
10/26 - Andrew Motion - Poet; British Poet Laureate; Biographer
10/27 - Dylan Thomas - Poet
10/27 - Sylvia Plath - Poet
10/28 - Evelyn Waugh - Novelist; "Brideshead Revisited"
10/29 - Guillermo Valencia - Poet
10/30 - Paul Valery - Poet; Essayist (conflicting reports of his birthdate: may be Oct. 31st.)
10/30 - Ezra Pound - Poet & Critic
10/30 - Penelope Allen - Poet
10/31 - John Keats - Romantic Poet
10/31 - Dick Francis - Novelist