20th-century American male writers

Conan Christopher O'Brien (born April 18, 1963) is an American television host, comedian, writer, and producer. He is best known for having hosted late-night talk shows for almost 28 years, beginning with Late Night with Conan O'Brien (1993–2009) and The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien (2009–2010) on the NBC television network, and Conan (2010–2021) on the cable channel TBS. Before his hosting career, O'Brien was a writer for the NBC sketch comedy series Saturday Night Live from 1988 to 1991, and the Fox animated sitcom The Simpsons from 1991 to 1993. He has also been host of the podcast series Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend since 2018 and is set to launch a travel show, Conan O'Brien Must Go, on Max.
Born in Brookline, Massachusetts, O'Brien was raised in an Irish Catholic family. He served as president of The Harvard Lampoon while attending Harvard University, and was a writer for the sketch comedy series Not Necessarily the News. After writing for several comedy shows in Los Angeles, he joined the writing staff of Saturday Night Live. O'Brien was a writer and producer for The Simpsons for two seasons until he was selected by Lorne Michaels and NBC to take over David Letterman's position as host of Late Night in 1993. Despite unfavorable reviews and threats of cancellation in the show's first years, O'Brien and the show developed and became highly regarded, earning a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing for a Variety Series. He hosted Late Night for 16 years, and as of 2023 is still the longest-serving host in the history of the franchise.
In 2009, O'Brien moved from New York to Los Angeles to host his own incarnation of The Tonight Show for seven months until highly publicized network politics prompted a host change in 2010. After this departure, O'Brien hosted a 32-city live comedy tour titled The Legally Prohibited from Being Funny on Television Tour, which was the subject of the documentary Conan O'Brien Can't Stop (2011). He then hosted Conan from 2010 to 2021. Throughout his career, he has also hosted a number of awards shows and television specials, including the Emmy Awards in 2002 and 2006 and the White House Correspondents' dinner in 1995 and 2013. Conan was named one of Time's 100 Most Influential People in 2010.Known for his spontaneous hosting style, which has been characterized by The New York Times as "awkward, self-deprecating humor", O'Brien's late-night programs combine the "lewd and wacky with more elegant, narrative-driven short films". His segments outside the studio, dubbed "remotes", have also become some of his best-received work, including the international travel series Conan Without Borders. With the retirement of David Letterman on May 20, 2015, O'Brien became the longest-working late-night talk show host active in the United States. This active streak ended with O'Brien's retirement from late-night television in June 2021, with his entire run as a late-night host lasting almost 28 years.

Harlan Jay Ellison (May 27, 1934 – June 28, 2018) was an American writer, known for his prolific and influential work in New Wave speculative fiction and for his outspoken, combative personality. His published works include more than 1,700 short stories, novellas, screenplays, comic book scripts, teleplays, essays, and a wide range of criticism covering literature, film, television, and print media. Some of his best-known works include the 1967 Star Trek episode "The City on the Edge of Forever", considered by some to be the single greatest episode of the Star Trek franchise (he subsequently wrote a book about the experience that includes his original teleplay), his A Boy and His Dog cycle (which was made into a film), and his short stories "I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream" and "'Repent, Harlequin!' Said the Ticktockman". He was also editor and anthologist for Dangerous Visions (1967) and Again, Dangerous Visions (1972). Ellison won numerous awards, including multiple Hugos, Nebulas, and Edgars.

Andrew M. Greeley (February 5, 1928 – May 29, 2013) was an American Catholic priest, sociologist, journalist and popular novelist. He was a professor of sociology at the University of Arizona and the University of Chicago, and a research associate with the National Opinion Research Center (NORC).
For many years, Greeley wrote a weekly column for the Chicago Sun-Times and contributed regularly to The New York Times, the National Catholic Reporter, America, and Commonweal.

Tad Mosel (May 1, 1922 – August 24, 2008) was an American playwright and one of the leading dramatists of hour-long teleplay genre for live television during the 1950s. He received the 1961 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for his play All the Way Home.

William Edward Brandon (September 21, 1914 – April 11, 2002) was an American writer and historian best known for his work about Native Americans and the American West.

Parke Shepherd Rouse Jr. (1915 – March 5, 1997) was an American journalist, writer and historian in Tidewater Virginia.

(John) Wallace Carroll (December 5, 1906 – July 28, 2002) was an American journalist, newspaper editor, and publisher, known for his 1968 editorial “Vietnam — Quo Vadis?” which called for an end to the Vietnam War and influenced President Lyndon B. Johnson’s initial withdrawal of troops from the conflict. Carroll at the time was the editor and publisher of the Winston-Salem Journal and Sentinel (1963-1974). Recognized as among the best of his generation of journalists, Carroll had previously worked as news editor for the Washington Bureau of The New York Times (1955-1963), as executive editor of the Winston-Salem Journal and Sentinel (1949-1955) and as a foreign correspondent for United Press in Europe (1929-1942). From 1942 to 1945 he headed the European division of the United States Office of War Information, charged with all propaganda efforts aimed at Nazi-conquered Europe during World War II. He was also the father of journalist John Carroll, the former editor of the Baltimore Sun, the Philadelphia Inquirer and the Los Angeles Times.

Elting Elmore Morison (December 14, 1909, Milwaukee, Wisconsin – April 20, 1995, Peterborough, New Hampshire) was an American historian of technology, military biographer, author of nonfiction books, and essayist. He was an MIT professor and the founder of MIT's Science, Technology, and Society (STS) program.

Theodore Saloutos (August 3, 1910 – November 15, 1980) was an American historian. His areas of research included agrarian politics and reform movements, immigration studies, and Greek immigration to the United States

Henry Cedric Scholberg (May 29, 1921 – August 4, 2012) was director and librarian of the Ames Library of South Asia at the University of Minnesota. His works include bibliographies on Indian encyclopedias, on manuals and gazetteers of India, and on the Portuguese in India. He also authored other scholarly works, plays and novels, as well as his own memoirs.