John Barth, American author, was born in Cambridge, Maryland, May 27, 1930. Barth studied at the Johns Hopkins University and received his B.A. in 1951, his M.A. in 1952. Barth was an associate professor of English, Penn State University, 1953-1965 and professor of English, SUNY, Buffalo, 1965-1973. In 1973, he returned to Hopkins where he was appointed professor of English and creative writing. John Barth is now Professor Emeritus at the University.John Barth is the author of several novels including The Sot-Weed Factor (1960), Giles Goat-Boy (1966), Chimera (1972), Sabbatical: A Romance (1982), The Friday Book (1984), The Tidewater Tales (1987), and The Last Voyage of Somebody the Sailor (1991). In 1972, Barth was the recipient of the National Book Award in fiction for Chimera. In this interview, Barth discusses his years as a student at Johns Hopkins in the 1940s-50s and his return to Hopkins as a faculty member. He describes changes that led to the development of the Writing Seminars and reflects on serving as a mentor to Hopkins undergraduate and graduate students. This oral history is part of the Mame Warren oral histories series.

Russell Baker, born August 14, 1925 in Morrisonville, Virginia, a small town across the state line from Harper's Ferry, West Virginia and not far from Frederick, Maryland, is a notable American author and Hopkins alumnus. An essayist and journalist for many years, Baker won his first of two Pulitzer Prizes in 1979 for his writing for The New York Times. He is notably one of the longest-running columnists in the history of the New York Times and The Baltimore Sun. Three years later, his first autobiography, Growing Up, won Baker his second Pulitzer. The primary subject of this first autobiography, his most well-known work, was his childhood in Virginia during the Great Depression, while the focus of his second autobiography, Good Times, was his extensive and varied half-century career in journalism, including a close look at his time with The Baltimore Sun. In this oral history, Russell Baker describes his childhood, World War II, and his student days at Hopkins (1942-1947), specifically his courses in English, his work with the News-Letter, and his general impressions of Hopkins. This oral history is a part of the Mame Warren oral histories series.

Paul Quin is a writer and designer who graduated from Hopkins in 1965 with a degree from the Writing Seminars. Quin notes Elliot Coleman, founder of the Writing Seminars in 1947, as an early teacher. During his undergraduate years at Hopkins, Quin witnessed historical events at the school including the anti-segregation protests from 1962-1963 and when Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke on campus. In this interview, Quin talks about his early life, experiences at Hopkins, coming to terms with his identity as a gay man, life in Baltimore in the early 1960s, and the trajectory of his life in his post-Hopkins years. This oral history is part of the Hopkins Retrospective oral histories series.

"S.H." is a member of the Johns Hopkins University graduating class of 2019 and was a writing seminars major. In this interview, S.H. describes growing up in Pennsylvania in a close-knit family and the transition to life on their own in college. They discuss the importance of leaving the "Hopkins bubble" and getting involved in the greater Baltimore community while in school, specifically through their participation in a nonprofit organization called Writers in Baltimore Schools. S.H. reflects on their coursework, their experience as a first-generation student, and shares their plan to attend law school following graduation. This oral history is part of the First-generation Students oral histories series.