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The Writer’s Almanac for Wednesday, March 4, 2026

Posted on March 4, 2026 - Writer's Almanac

On this day in 1791, Vermont became a state. It was the 14th state to join the Union — the first aside from the original 13 colonies. It’s the second-least populated state in the nation, and only five states are smaller in land area. Of all the 50 states, it has the very lowest Gross State Product. But it also has one of the best unemployment rates in the nation.

The Writer’s Almanac for Tuesday, March 3, 2026

Posted on March 3, 2026 - Writer's Almanac

It’s the birthday of the host of “This American Life”: Ira Glass, born in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1959. He got into radio, he says, “totally by accident.” It was 1978, he was 19, had just finished his freshman year of college, and was looking for a summer job with an ad agency or a TV station. He managed to talk his way into an internship with NPR despite the fact he’d never listened to public radio.

The Writer’s Almanac for Monday, March 2, 2026

Posted on March 2, 2026 - Writer's Almanac

It’s the birthday of journalist and novelist Tom Wolfe, born in Richmond, Virginia (1931), the author of the books The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test (1968), Radical Chic and Mau-Mauing the Flake Catchers (1970), and The Right Stuff (1979). He helped spark the “New Journalism” movement, which began in the 1960s.

The Writer’s Almanac for Sunday, March 1, 2026

Posted on March 1, 2026 - Writer's Almanac

Today is the birthday of novelist and essayist Ralph Ellison, born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, in 1914. He was the grandson of slaves, and he originally wanted to be a classical composer, but when he met the great African-American writers Langston Hughes and Richard Wright, they encouraged him to become a writer instead.

The Writer’s Almanac for Saturday, February 28, 2026

Posted on February 28, 2026 - Writer's Almanac

It’s the birthday of novelist Colum McCann, born in Dublin, Ireland (1965). He’s the author of Let the Great World Spin (2009), which won the 2009 National Book Award. His fiction has been translated into 30 languages. He grew up in suburban middle-class Dublin in a house full of books and majored in journalism. At age 21, he moved to the United States, intent on writing the great American novel that summer. He didn’t get very far.

The Writer’s Almanac for Friday, February 27, 2026

Posted on February 27, 2026 - Writer's Almanac

Today is the birthday of the poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, born in Portland, Maine (1807). He entered Bowdoin College at the age of 15, and one of his classmates was Nathaniel Hawthorne; the two would remain lifelong friends. When Longfellow graduated, the college gave him a chair in modern languages, and he worked with translations for the rest of his life.

The Writer’s Almanac for Thursday, February 26, 2026

Posted on February 26, 2026 - Writer's Almanac

President Woodrow Wilson established the Grand Canyon National Park on this date in 1919, after a 30 year opposition from ranchers, miners, and entrepreneurs. Today, the Grand Canyon National Park covers more than 1,900 square miles; the canyon itself is 277 river miles long, 10 miles wide, and a mile deep.

The Writer’s Almanac for Wednesday, February 25, 2026

Posted on February 25, 2026 - Writer's Almanac

It was on this date in 1570 Queen Elizabeth I was officially excommunicated from the Roman Catholic Church and declared a heretic, whereupon The English Parliament declared it treason to call the queen a heretic or imply that she was not the rightful monarch. It put English Catholics in a bind: They had to choose between renouncing their faith or facing crippling fines for committing treason.

The Writer’s Almanac for Tuesday, February 24, 2026

Posted on February 24, 2026 - Writer's Almanac

Today is the birthday of Wilhelm Grimm, born in Hanau, Germany (1786), who with his brother Jacob collected and compiled oral folktales from nearby villages. The brothers Grimm published their first volume in 1812, many of them very dark and violent. While their original intent was only to preserve their culture’s oral folktales, they soon realized children were reading their book,

The Writer’s Almanac for Monday, February 23, 2026

Posted on February 23, 2026 - Writer's Almanac

On this date in 1455, the first printing of the Gutenberg Bible began in Mainz, Germany. Although books in China had been printed as early as the 9th century, every book in Europe had been produced by hand, copied painstakingly by scribes, until Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press with moveable type.

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