The late David Foster Wallace wrote articles, essays and novels, including 1996's Infinite Jest, a sprawling comic tale of modern America. He grew up in Illinois and graduated from Amherst College in 1985, a year before publishing his first novel, The Broom of the System. Wallace earned a graduate degree from the University of Arizona (1987) and began publishing short stories. Critics loved Infinite Jest, calling it a hilarious experimental work by a great intelligence, and many prominent writers hailed Wallace as the next master of American fiction. After years of suffering from depression, he hanged himself when he was 46 years old. His short stories are collected in Girl With Curious Hair, Brief Interviews with Hideous Men and Oblivion. His essays and articles on a variety of subjects are collected in A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again and Consider the Lobster and Other Essays.

Extra credit: David Foster Wallace taught writing at Illinois State University (1992-2001) and at Pomona College in California (2002-08)... He was awarded a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship in 1997... He married Karen Green in 2004... Wallace left behind an unfinished novel, The Pale King.