After years of watching their parents work hard for their careers, many children follow in those same footsteps to create a similar career for themselves. As a way to celebrate sons and daughters’ day today, here are eight authors who followed in their literary parent’s footsteps.
Emma Straub
The contemporary novelist who brought us some of our favorites like All Adults Here, Modern Lovers, and The Vacationers also has a literary dad. Peter Straub has co-written a few times with Stephen King along with writing his own horror and supernatural novels.
Tessa Dahl
Tessa Dahl writes about the tragedies in the Dahl household in her barely fictionalized novel, Working for Love. Like her father, Roald Dahl, author of childhood favorites Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and James and the Giant Peach, Tessa has also written a few children’s books.
Charles Dickens Jr.
Despite his father pushing him towards business and way from the writing world, Charles Dickens Jr went on to write the Dickens’ Dictionary of London.
Jennifer Niven
You may recognize Jennifer from a few of her popular young adult novels, All the Bright Places, Holding Up the Universe, and Breathless. What you may not know, is that her mom is also a writer. Penelope Niven was a 40-year-old teacher when she wrote her first book, Carl Sandburg: a Biography.
Rebecca Walker
As the daughter of Alice Walker, author of The Color Purple, and the product of the first interracial couple in Mississippi, Rebecca is a feminist and activist who writes stories to create conversations about race, gender, the nuclear family, and power.
Joe Hill
Joe Hill has written a lot of books; one you may recognize is Locke and Key as it was adapted into a Netflix series. For only being in his late forties, Joe has a lot of books published. My guess is he probably learned all his fast writing techniques from his dad, Stephen King.
Charles Todd
Now Charles hasn’t walked in his mother’s footsteps, instead, they have walked the journey of being published authors together. Under the pen name Charles Todd, Charles and his mom Caroline have written two best-selling mystery series together: Inspector Ian Rutledge series and Bess Crawford series.
Anthony West
Following in both his mother’s and his father’s footsteps, Anthony West was an author and literary critic. Being the product of the affair between novelists H.G. Wells and Rebecca West, Anthony West’s most well-known book was a biography about his father, H.G. Wells.
Featured Image Via GIST, Daily Mail, and Men’s Health