On Contemporary Authors, researchers can find biographical information on more than 149,000 modern novelists, poets, playwrights, nonfiction writers, journalists and scriptwriters. Sketches typically include personal information, contact information, career history, writings, biographical and critical sources, authors' comments, and informative essays about their lives and work.

Contemporary Authors sketches can be a very useful starting point for overview information on the author and their works. 

Like its sibling database, the Dictionary of Literary Biography, the publisher has not created video tutorials on the use of the Contemporary Authors database. There are some tools that will aid in your research as you use these databases. Let's look at a sample result page:

Results can be saved to a drive, downloaded, emailed, or printed. Citations, highlights, and notes can all be utilized with these database records. 

Exporting options for a variety of citation tools are given at the bottom of the results, as shown below:

Person Search

Person Search allows you to search for individuals covered within Contemporary Authors by name or based on criteria like gender, ethnicity, occupation, etc.

Type in all or part of the name of an individual, or select criteria listed under More Options. Then, click Search to generate a list of matching individuals covered within the resource. Click one of the links to generate a list of search results related to the selected individual.  

Works Search

Works Search allows you to search for literary works covered within Contemporary Authors by title or based on criteria like publication year, author gender, author nationality, etc.

Type in all or part of the title of a work, or select criteria listed under More Options. Then, click “Search” to generate a list of matching titles covered within the resource. Click one of the links to generate a list of search results related to the selected work.

For more information on searching within Contemporary Authors, click here.