Jane Smiley

Jane Smiley is the author of thirteen novels, including "A Thousand Acres," which was awarded the Pulitzer Prize, four works of nonfiction, and a horse book for young adults. She has two more works coming out this year, "A Good Horse," the second in the horse book series, and "The Man Who Invented the Computer," a biography of John Vincent Atanasoff, the first volume Sloane Foundation American Inventers series. In 2001 she was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She received the PEN USA Lifetime Achievement Award for Literature in 2006. Her newest adult novel, "Private Life," is a fictional account of the tumultuous life of a Midwestern woman from the 1880s to World War II. Several of the book's characters are based on figures from Smiley's own family tree.