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Writer's Almanac

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The Writer’s Almanac for Saturday, July 11, 2026

The Writer’s Almanac for Saturday, July 11, 2026

It’s the birthday of Elwyn Brooks White, better known as E.B. White, born in Mount Vernon, New York (1899). He wrote for The New Yorker for nearly 60 years, and married its first fiction editor, Katharine Angell, in 1929.

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The Writer’s Almanac for Friday, July 10, 2026

The Writer’s Almanac for Friday, July 10, 2026

Today is the birthday of short-story writer Alice Munro, born Alice Laidlaw in Wingham, Ontario (1931). She’s the author of many collections of short stories.

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The Writer’s Almanac for Thursday, July 9, 2026

The Writer’s Almanac for Thursday, July 9, 2026

It’s the birthday of the man the New York Times called “the poet laureate of contemporary medicine,” neurologist and writer Oliver Sacks, born in London (1933).

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The Writer’s Almanac for Wednesday, July 8, 2026

The Writer’s Almanac for Wednesday, July 8, 2026

It’s the birthday of writer Shirley Ann Grau, whose novels and short stories, set in the Deep South, explore the intricacies of race and gender.

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The Writer’s Almanac for Friday, August 7, 2026

The Writer’s Almanac for Friday, August 7, 2026

It’s the birthday of the Dutch dancer and spy Mata Hari, born Margaretha Zelle in Leeuwarden, the Netherlands (1876). She attended a teachers college and then married an army officer, Captain Rudolph MacLeod, in 1895.

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The Writer’s Almanac for Tuesday, July 7, 2026

The Writer’s Almanac for Tuesday, July 7, 2026

It’s the birthday of historian and author David McCullough, born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (1933). His first love was art, but when he was an undergraduate at Yale, the faculty included Brendan Gill, John Hersey, Robert Penn Warren, and Thornton Wilder, so eventually he started to think about life as a writer.

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The Writer’s Almanac for Monday, July 6, 2026

The Writer’s Almanac for Monday, July 6, 2026

And it was on this day in 1535 that Sir Thomas More was beheaded in the Tower of London for refusing to recognize his longtime friend King Henry VIII as the head of the Church. Thomas More was a barrister, a scholar, and a writer.

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The Writer’s Almanac for Sunday, July 5, 2026

The Writer’s Almanac for Sunday, July 5, 2026

On this date in 1687, Isaac Newton published one of the most important books in the history of science. Its full name is Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, or “Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy.”

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The Writer’s Almanac for Saturday, July 4, 2026

The Writer’s Almanac for Saturday, July 4, 2026

It’s the birthday of sex expert “Dr. Ruth,” Ruth Westheimer, born Karola Ruth Siegel in Frankfurt, Germany (1928) to Orthodox Jewish parents. As a girl she learned about sex early by sneaking into her father’s library to read his books.

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The Writer’s Almanac for Friday, July 3, 2026

The Writer’s Almanac for Friday, July 3, 2026

On this date in 1913, Civil War veterans retraced their own steps in a reenactment of Pickett’s Charge. Pickett’s Charge was the last Southern charge of the bloody three-day Battle of Gettysburg.

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