Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. is an American novelist, satirist, and most recently, graphic artist. An Indianapolis native, the Hoosier capital frequently served as the setting for many of his novels. He honed his writing skills at Shortridge’s Daily Echo, the nation's first and only daily high school newspaper.

He attended Cornell University where he was a columnist for the student-run Daily Sun. Mr. Vonnegut trained as a chemist and worked as a journalist before joining the U.S. Army to serve in World War II. His experience as a prisoner of war earned him a Purple Heart medal and influenced much of his later work.

After the war, he graduated from the University of Chicago with a master’s degree in anthropology and also worked as a police reporter. His experiences as an advance scout in the Battle of the Bulge and witness to the bombing of Dresden was the basis of one of his most famous books, Slaughterhouse-Five. His other works include Breakfast of Champions, Player Piano, The Sirens of Titan, Mother Night, Cat's Cradle, and Timequake.

A self-proclaimed humanist and socialist (influenced by the style of Indiana's own Eugene V. Debs), he announced his retirement from fiction writing in 1997. In 2005, many of his essays were collected in the bestselling, A Man Without A Country. Mr. Vonnegut referred to the book's success as “a nice glass of champagne at the end of a life.”

On April 11th, 2007, Mr. Vonnegut passed away after being hospitalized for injuries he sustained during a fall at his home.