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The Writer’s Almanac for Sunday, December 7, 2025

Posted on December 7, 2025 - Writer's Almanac

It’s the birthday of the novelist Willa Cather, born in Back Creek Valley, Virginia (1873). Her family moved to Nebraska when she was a little girl, to get away from a tuberculosis epidemic that had killed a lot of her extended family. In Red Cloud, Nebraska, Cather spent most of her free time talking to the immigrant farmers and listening to their stories about their homelands.

The Writer’s Almanac for Saturday, December 6, 2025

Posted on December 6, 2025 - Writer's Almanac

It was on this day in 1877 that Thomas Alva Edison recited “Mary Had a Little Lamb” into his new phonograph device. It was the world’s first recording of the human voice. Edison had invented a method to inscribe telegraph messages through indentations on paper tape, and then store them to send later.

The Writer’s Almanac for Friday, December 5, 2025

Posted on December 5, 2025 - Writer's Almanac

It’s the birthday of writer John Berendt, born in Syracuse, New York (1939). He was an editor at Esquire magazine when he took a trip to Savannah, Georgia. He ended up living there for five years doing research and interviews, and he wrote a book, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (1994).

The Writer’s Almanac for Thursday, December 4, 2025

Posted on December 4, 2025 - Writer's Almanac

It’s the birthday of the poet Rainer Maria Rilke, born in Prague (1875). His family wanted him to be a lawyer and take over his uncle’s law firm. But he published some sentimental love poetry, and it inspired him to make his living as a writer. He went to Munich to be part of the arts scene there, and he met a woman, Lou Salomé.

The Writer’s Almanac for Wednesday, December 3, 2025

Posted on December 3, 2025 - Writer's Almanac

It’s the birthday of Polish novelist Joseph Conrad, born Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski in 1857 in Berdichev, which is now in the Ukraine. His father was a scholar and an outspoken opponent of the oppressive regime. He was arrested, and the family was exiled to a northern province in Russia, where both Joseph’s parents contracted tuberculosis and died.

The Writer’s Almanac for Tuesday, December 2, 2025

Posted on December 2, 2025 - Writer's Almanac

It’s the birthday of novelist Ann Patchett, born in Los Angeles (1963). She was raised in Nashville by her single mother, and she hardly ever went to school. So even though she decided at age five that she wanted to be a writer, at age seven she still didn’t know how to read. But she learned, and by high school, she wrote incessantly.

The Writer’s Almanac for Monday, December 1, 2025

Posted on December 1, 2025 - Writer's Almanac

It was on this day in 1955, in Montgomery, Alabama, that Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat in the front of a bus to a white passenger.

The Writer’s Almanac for Sunday, November 30, 2025

Posted on November 30, 2025 - Writer's Almanac

It’s the birthday of Mark Twain, born Samuel Langhorne Clemens in Florida, Missouri, in 1835. When he was young, his family moved to Hannibal, a Missouri town along the banks of the Mississippi and a frequent stop for steamboats.

The Writer’s Almanac for Saturday, November 29, 2025

Posted on November 29, 2025 - Writer's Almanac

His daughter was Louisa May Alcott, and today is also her birthday. She was born in 1832 in Germantown, Pennsylvania. She was a nurse during the Civil War, and she published a collection of her letters home, called Hospital Sketches (1863), and that book got some attention. So she started writing what she loved: novels and stories filled with blood, intrigue, and evil villains.

The Writer’s Almanac for Friday, November 28, 2025

Posted on November 28, 2025 - Writer's Almanac

Today is the 100th birthday of the French anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss, born in Brussels, Belgium, in 1908. He grew up in Paris, and in college he studied philosophy and law. He got an offer to teach at a college in Sao Paulo, Brazil. In Brazil, he went into the Amazon rainforest, met indigenous people, and started researching them.

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