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The Writer’s Almanac for Tuesday, April 29, 2025

Posted on April 29, 2025 - Writer's Almanac

It’s the birthday of the man who said, “It don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that swing”: Duke Ellington, born Edward Kennedy Ellington in Washington, D.C. (1899). His father’s job as a butler paid well, his mother dressed him in fancy clothes, and so his friends gave him the nickname “Duke”. When he was seven years old, a piano teacher refused to teach him, because he wouldn’t stop improvising and experimenting with off-tone chords.

The Writer’s Almanac for Monday, April 28, 2025

Posted on April 28, 2025 - Writer's Almanac

It’s the birthday of novelist Harper Lee, born Nelle Harper Lee in Monroeville, Alabama (1926). She has written just one novel, To Kill A Mockingbird (1960), but it has sold more than 30 million copies. She hates interviews and speeches, and prefers to live quietly in Monroeville, where she is known as Miss Nelle.

The Writer’s Almanac for Sunday, April 27, 2025

Posted on April 27, 2025 - Writer's Almanac

It was on this day in 1934 that A Field Guide to the Birds by Roger Tory Peterson was published. The son of Swedish and German immigrants, Peterson grew up in Jamestown, a struggling industrial town near the western border of New York state. He was a smart boy, and he skipped two grades. He didn’t fit in well with his older classmates, who made fun of him for his obsession with wildlife — they called him “Professor Nuts Peterson.”

The Writer’s Almanac for Saturday, April 26, 2025

Posted on April 26, 2025 - Writer's Almanac

And it’s the birthday of landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted, born in Hartford, Connecticut, in 1822. Even though he studied such diverse subjects as chemistry, engineering, and agriculture, he wasn’t big on formal education, preferring instead to wander through nature.

The Writer’s Almanac for Friday, April 25, 2025

Posted on April 25, 2025 - Writer's Almanac

It’s the anniversary of the 1719 publication of Daniel Defoe’s novel The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe. It is the story of a castaway who spends 28 years on a remote island before he is rescued, and it is considered one of the first English novels. When it was published, Defoe was 59 years old, and it was his first novel.

The Writer’s Almanac for Thursday, April 24, 2025

Posted on April 24, 2025 - Writer's Almanac

On this date in 1895, Joshua Slocum set sail on a trip around the world. Growing up in Nova Scotia, Slocum longed for a life at sea, but his father disapproved. After several attempts to run away from home, the boy finally left home for good when he was 16, signing on as a seaman on a merchant ship bound for Dublin. A few years later, he settled in San Francisco and began a career as a sea captain.

The Writer’s Almanac for Wednesday, April 23, 2025

Posted on April 23, 2025 - Writer's Almanac

It’s the 450th anniversary of the birth of William Shakespeare, who is traditionally believed to have been born on this date in 1564 in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England. He left behind no personal papers, so our knowledge of his life comes to us from public and court documents. His father, John, was a glove-maker and alderman, and his mother, Mary Arden, was a landed heiress.

The Writer’s Almanac for Tuesday, April 22, 2025

Posted on April 22, 2025 - Writer's Almanac

The first Oklahoma Land Rush began on this date in 1889. In the early 1800s, white settlers began eyeing the lands of the Cherokee and other tribes for farming and mining. The U.S. government had a dusty tract of land to the west that was uninhabited and not much good for farming, so it began relocating the Native Americans to these western lands starting in 1817.

The Writer’s Almanac for Monday, April 21, 2025

Posted on April 21, 2025 - Writer's Almanac

It’s the birthday of novelist Charlotte Brontë, born in Thornton, England (1816). A fellow writer described her as “a tiny, delicate, serious, little lady, with fair straight hair and steady eyes.” Her father was an Anglican clergyman, and she grew up in the small village of Haworth in the moors of West Yorkshire, a place she later described to her publisher as “a strange uncivilized little place.”

The Writer’s Almanac for Sunday, April 20, 2025

Posted on April 20, 2025 - Writer's Almanac

It was on this day in 1841 that the first “detective story” was published: “The Murders in the Rue Morgue,” by Edgar Allan Poe. In the story, C. August Dupin reads about the murder of a mother and daughter in a Paris street. The police are baffled, and Dupin decides to offer up his services.

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