Topic: E.B. White

Elwyn Brooks White (July 11, 1899 – October 1, 1985), usually known as E. B. White, was an American writer. A long-time contributor to The New Yorker magazine, he also wrote many famous books for both adults and children, such as the popular Charlotte's Web and Stuart Little, and co-authored a widely used writing guide, The Elements of Style, popularly known by its authors' names, as "Strunk & White."

White was born in Mt. Vernon, New York, the youngest child of Samuel White, a piano manufacturer, and Jessie Hart. He served in the army before going on to college. White graduated from Cornell University with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1921. He picked up the nickname "Andy" at Cornell, where tradition confers that moniker on any male student surnamed White, after Cornell co-founder Andrew Dickson White. While at Cornell, he worked as editor of The Cornell Daily Sun with classmate Allison Danzig who later became a sportswriter for The New York Times. White was also a member of the Quill and Dagger society and Phi Gamma Delta (FIJI). He wrote for The Seattle Times and Seattle Post-Intelligencer and worked as an ad man before returning to New York City in 1924.

White married Katharine Sergeant Angell in 1929, also an editor at The New Yorker, and author (as Katharine White) of Onward and Upward in the Garden. They had a son, Joel White, a naval architect and boatbuilder, who owned Brooklin Boatyard in Brooklin, Maine. Katharine's son from her first marriage, Roger Angell, has spent decades as a fiction editor for The New Yorker and is well known as the magazine's baseball writer.