I’ve seen people talk about actors and artists that had a terrible time.
My own would be Anne Rice. She wrote Interview with the Vampire after her young daughter died of Leukemia. Then her husband suddenly died of a brain hemorrhage. I suspect her Christian, anti-fanfic phase was a result of mental illness and manipulation from the publishers, although I don’t think she ever apologized.
This is going to sound so so odd but Sappho. We have quite a few writings from men at the time but with her the writings went unrecognised and was not preserved what we do have is beautiful and I do wish we had more.
To be fair, we have more of her than of any of the other lyric poets (except Pindar) so little actually survived from ancient Greece, probably less than 1% is a great tragedy.
She’s the only author I’ve ever strongly considered getting a tattoo to honor. Her work changed me in a way I can’t explain. She’s so incredible and I hate that so much is lost.