Andre Dubus wrote short stories and novellas about the brutal truths and miraculous moments in life—and more than a few dealt with the joys and sorrows of fatherhood.

When Fay Vincent Jr. resigned as the commissioner of Major League Baseball, he turned to the pages of “America” in his effort “to try to put all of the current mess in perspective.”

Theophilus Lewis wrote hundreds of theater reviews for “America,” though he got his start as a critic for a magazine central to the Harlem Renaissance in the 1920s.

Jon Hassler wrote novels that examined with infinite compassion the lives of the residents of small-town Minnesota.

For his novels, memoirs, biographies and collections of short stories and poetry, Larry Woiwode is considered by some critics to be one of the greatest American authors of the 20th century.

For more than three decades, Mike Davis has offered clear and often stinging counterpoints to the prevailing vision of the “California Dream.”