On September 8, 1986, The Oprah Winfrey Show is broadcast nationally for the first time. A huge success, her daytime television talk show turns Winfrey into one of the most powerful, wealthy people in show business and, arguably, the most influential woman in America. Find Oprah at the library.

Ann Beattie,  American short story writer and novelist, was born in Washington D.C. on September 8, 1947.  Her work has been compared to that of Alice Adams, J.D. Salinger, John Cheever, and John Updike. Beattie’s characters are usually passive, alienated people who cannot extricate themselves from unsatisfying careers and lives. In detached, unemotional prose Beattie chronicles their unfulfilling lives. In her early works, there is little examination of motivation, but the depth of her characters increases in her later works. Find Ann Beattie at the library.

Jon Scieszka, American children’s writer, best known for picture books created with the illustrator Lane Smith, was born in Flint, Michigan on September 8, 1954. Most of his best-known works were written in conjunction with illustrator Lane Smith. Among their collaborations are The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales, The True Story of the Three Little Pigs and Math Curse. He is also the author of the Time Warp Trio series, for which Smith illustrated eight of the sixteen books. The series has been made into a television show. Scieszka is also a nationally recognized reading advocate, and the founder of Guys Read – a web-based literacy program for boys whose mission is “to help boys become self-motivated, lifelong readers.”