E. L. Doctorow
(b. 1931)

Widely regarded as one of the best American novelists of the 20th century, E. L. Doctorow was raised in the New York borough of the Bronx and graduated from the prestigious Bronx High School of Science in 1948. He went on to Kenyon College in Ohio, a college he chose because John Crowe Ransom, a poet and critic, was a professor there. While at Kenyon, Doctorow majored in philosophy and acted in campus productions. After graduating with honors from Kenyon, Doctorow studied English drama and directing at Columbia University in New York City. He met Helen Setzer at
Columbia and they married in August 1954.

In 1953, Doctorow was drafted into the U.S. Army and was stationed in Germany until 1955. While there, he and his wife had their first child. Doctorow returned to New York after his military service. He soon found work with Columbia Pictures where he read a novel a day and wrote a critique about each novel's potentional for film. Then, in 1959, he became an associate editor for the New American Library. During this time, he published his first novel, Welcome to Hard Times. In 1964, he accepted a position as editor-in-chief of Dial Press. After leaving Dial Press in 1969, he worked as a writer in residence or a member of the faculty for numerous universities and continued to publish award-winning works, including Ragtime (1975), World's Fair (1985) and Billy Bathgate (1989).

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