John Updike was born on March 18, 1932, in Reading, Pennsylvania, and he grew up as an only child in Shillington. As a young person he had a speech impediment that made him somewhat shy and isolated, but he loved to draw and write. He graduated from high school as president and co-valedictorian of his class. During that summer (1950), he had the opportunity to write a few feature stories for the Reading Eagle during his work there as a copy boy. That fall, he entered Harvard University on a tuition scholarship. Immediately, he got involved with the Harvard Lampoon, a humor magazine, by submitting articles and drawings. Eight years later, his first book, a poetry collection called The Carpentered Hen and Other Tame Creatures, was published.

Since then, Updike has published numerous novels, short stories, plays, and poems. Among his novels are Rabbit, Run (1960), Rabbit Redux (1971), Rabbit Is Rich (1981), and Rabbit at Rest (1990), a series of books about a character called Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom, who goes from being a successful high school basketball player to his marriage, through the 1960s, and into midlife and old age. Another of Updike's many novels, The Witches of Eastwick (1984), was made into a movie. Some poetry books Updike has written are Tossing and Turning, Verse, Telephone Poles, A Child's Calendar, and Midpoint and Other Poems.