John Steinbeck "East of Eden" (1952), and the novellas "Of Mice and Men" (1937) and "The Red Pony" (1937). The Pulitzer Prize-winning "The Grapes of Wrath" (1939) is considered Steinbeck's masterpiece and part of the American literary canon. In the first 75 years after it was published, it sold 14 million copies. Most of Steinbeck's work is set in central California, particularly in the Salinas Valley and the California Coast Ranges region. His works frequently explored the themes of fate and injustice, especially as applied to downtrodden or everyman protagonists. Steinbeck was born on February 27, 1902, in Salinas, California. He was
John Briggs (author) John Briggs (author) John Briggs FRSGS (born 1945) is an American author and co-author of general audience nonfiction books in the fields of holistic physics; aesthetics in the arts; creativity, creative process, and consciousness studies. Emeritus Distinguished CSU Professor of Writing and Aesthetics at Western Connecticut State University, Briggs lives in Granville, Massachusetts, where he has served as a Selectman and a police officer. Holistic approaches to nature, art and indigenous traditions, and reflections on the ways that human consciousness experiences the whole. His early work explored metaphor as a holistic deep structure principle in the arts. More recently, he