Dickinson College

Jennifer Haigh is an American novelist and short story writer. She was born in Barnesboro, a Western Pennsylvania coal town 85 miles northeast of... Pittsburgh in Cambria County. She attended Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania and earned a Master of Fine Arts degree from the Iowa Writers' Workshop in 2002. Her fiction has been published in Granta, Ploughshares, The Virginia Quarterly Review, Good Housekeeping, and many other publications. Her debut novel Mrs. Kimble -- telling the story of a mysterious con man named Ken Kimble through the eyes of his three wives -- won the PEN/Hemingway Award for outstanding debut fiction. Her next novel, Baker Towers , depicts the rise and fall of a western Pennsylvania coal town in the years following World War II. It was a New York Times bestseller and won the 2006 PEN/L.L. Winship award for best book by a New England writer. Her third novel, The Condition, was published by HarperCollins in July, 2008. It traces the dissolution of a proper New England family when their only daughter is diagnosed with Turner's Syndrome, a chromosomal abnormality that keeps her from going through puberty.
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Jennifer L. Holm is an American childen's writer, and recipient of three Newbery Honors. Holm was raised in Audubon, Pennsylvania with her four... brothers. After graduating from Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, she worked in television and later began to write. Our Only May Amelia, the story of a 12-year-old girl living in the late 19th century, inspired by a diary written by her great aunt, became her first published novel and was a 2000 Newbery Honor Book. Holm also has written a series starring Jane Peck, a young woman living in the 1850s ; The Creek, a horror thriller; a series of graphic novels for young adults illustrated by her brother Matthew ; and The Stink Files, a series co-written with her husband Jonathan Hamel starring James Edward Bristlefur, a cat raised by a British secret agent who is adopted by an American family and renamed Mr. Stink after his owner is murdered.
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Roseann "Rosie" O'Donnell is an American comedian, actress, author and television personality. She has also been a magazine editor and continues to... be a celebrity blogger, LGBT rights activist, television producer and collaborative partner in the LGBT family vacation company R Family Vacations. Raised Roman Catholic, O'Donnell lost her mother to cancer as a pre-teen and has stressed the importance of protecting children and supporting families throughout her career. O'Donnell started her comedy career while still a teenager and her big break was on the talent show Star Search in 1984. A TV sitcom and a series of movies introduced her to a larger national audience and in 1996 she started hosting The Rosie O'Donnell Show which won multiple Emmy awards. During her years on The Rosie O'Donnell Show, she wrote her first book, a memoir called Find Me and developed the nickname "Queen Of Nice" as well as a reputation for philanthropic efforts. She used the book's $3 million advance to establish her own For All Kids foundation and promoted other charity projects encouraging other celebrities on her show to also take part.
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Frances Conroy is an American actress. She is best known for playing Ruth, the matriarch of the Fisher family, on Six Feet Under, which earned her a... Golden Globe and a Screen Actors Guild Award. Conroy was born in Monroe, Georgia to a business executive father and a mother who also worked in business. During the 1971-1972 school year she was a student at Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, where she was a member of the Mermaid Players and appeared in college theatrical productions. She moved to New York City to study drama at the Neighborhood Playhouse and the Juilliard School. She was a member of Juilliard's Drama Division Group 6 which also included Kelsey Grammer, Harriet Sansom Harris, and Robin Williams. During the 1970s, she performed regularly with regional and touring theatrical companies , and appeared as Desdemona at the Delacorte Theatre in a production of Othello with Richard Dreyfuss and Raul Julia. One of her first film appearances was as a Shakespearean actress in Woody Allen's 1979 classic, Manhattan.
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