An American literary institution providing a forum for writers since 1900


The public is the only critic whose opinion is worth anything at all.
- Mark Twain

Rejection slips, or form letters, however tactfully phrased, are lacerations of the soul, if not quite inventions of the devil - but there is no way around them.
- Isaac Asimov

To write simply is as difficult as to be good.
- W. Somerset Maugham

The writer's way is rough and lonely and who would choose it while there are vacancies in more gracious professions, such as, say cleaning ferryboats?
- Dorothy Parker

Writing is the hardest way of earning a living with the possible exception of wrestling alligators.
- William Saroyan

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WHO WE ARE

The Boston Authors Club is the oldest continuous authors group in the United States. It was founded in 1899 by Julia Ward Howe, Thomas Higginson and Helen Winslow and held its first meeting January 6, 1900. Then, in the words of club records, Boston was a "very literary city" as it is today. The first club room was in the Kensington building at the corner of Boylston and Exeter streets. Since that time, the club has had many homes throughout Boston, ranging from the Academy of Arts and Sciences and Arlington Street Church to our current meeting places The College Club of Boston, 44 Commonwealth Avenue and the Boston Public Library, Copley Square. Programs are open to the public.

Our members today write biography, history, science, travel, memoirs, essays, poetry, general nonfiction and all genres of fiction from mysteries to the historical novel. Our writers of children's literature range from picture books to young adult fiction and nonfiction.

Past members include Edward Everett Hale, Richard Henry Dana III, David McCord, Edward Arlington Robinson, Mark Twain, Henry Cabot Lodge, Isaac Asimov, Thornton Burgess, Ellery Queen, John McAleer, Louise Hall Tharp, Margaret Sidney, Robb Sagendorf, Edward Arlington Robinson, Cornelia Otis Skinner, Gelett Burgess, Witter Bynner, Katherine Lee Bates ("America the Beautiful"), Oscar Fay Adams, Edward L. Bernays, James Blish, Winston Churchill, Sydney A. Clark, Barbara Cooney, Dorothy Canfield Fisher, Daniel Chester French, Bliss Perry, Kate Douglas Wiggin, Albert Payson Terhune, J.P. Marquand.

Members who have won Pulitzer Prizes: Maude Howe Elliott, Laura E. Richard, Booth Tarkington (twice), Willa Cather, M.A. DeWolfe Howe, J.P. Marquand, Esther Forbes, Anne Sexton, Arthur Walworth, Gordon S. Wood, Robert Hillyer, Justin Harvey Smith, Edward Arlington Robinson (3 times), Kai Bird, Martin J. Sherwin.