Today's most outstanding and widely-known writers are profiled in this handy five-volume set. Clearly written in an easy-to-use format, it collects detailed biographical and bibliographical information on approximately 700 authors who are most-often studied in college and high school. To form this concise collection, editors honed the Major 21st-Century Writers, selectively omitting some entries while adding some entirely new entries and revising others. Originally drawn from our award-winnin Contemporary Authors series, sketches typically include personal information, addresses, career history, writings, work in progress, biographical/critical sources and authors' comments and/or informative essays about their lives and work. Both convenient and cost-effective, this staple resource meets the demand for information on the most popular novelists, journalists, nonfiction writers, poets, and playwrights.