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The Writer’s Almanac for Saturday, October 11, 2025

Posted on October 11, 2025 - Writer's Almanac

It’s the birthday of Eleanor Roosevelt, born in New York City in 1884. She was shy and awkward as a girl; her mother, a beautiful socialite, was disappointed in her daughter. Both Eleanor’s parents died by the time she was a teenager. Then she met a distant cousin, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and they got married.

The Writer’s Almanac for Friday, October 10, 2025

Posted on October 10, 2025 - Writer's Almanac

It was on this day in 1971 that the London Bridge was dedicated in Lake Havasu City, Arizona. The city of London realized that the bridge wasn’t strong enough for all the traffic that crossed it every day, and that it was sinking slowly into the Thames River. They needed a more modern bridge, so they put the London Bridge up for sale. The entire bridge was dismantled, each stone was numbered, and then it was shipped to Arizona, where it took three years to put back together.

The Writer’s Almanac for Thursday, October 9, 2025

Posted on October 9, 2025 - Writer's Almanac

It’s the birthday of the English singer and songwriter John Lennon, born in Liverpool, England, in 1940. He was an only child, raised by his aunt and uncle, but his mother lived nearby, and she encouraged him to play the banjo, and later the guitar.

The Writer’s Almanac for Wednesday, October 8, 2025

Posted on October 8, 2025 - Writer's Almanac

It’s the birthday of the science fiction writer Frank Herbert, born in Tacoma, Washington, in 1920. He was a photographer during WWII. He went to the University of Washington, but he didn’t graduate because he only wanted to study what interested him, so he refused to take the required courses for a major.

The Writer’s Almanac for Tuesday, October 7, 2025

Posted on October 7, 2025 - Writer's Almanac

It’s the birthday of the novelist and critic Elizabeth Janeway, born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1913. She was in college when she started writing a novel, but she didn’t finish it until many years later, while she was raising her first child and pregnant with her second one. The novel was called The Walsh Girls (1943).

The Writer’s Almanac for Monday, October 6, 2025

Posted on October 6, 2025 - Writer's Almanac

It was on this day, October 6th, that two of William Faulkner’s novels were published, two years apart: As I Lay Dying came out in 1930 and Light in August in 1932. Faulkner wrote As I Lay Dying in just six weeks; he wrote it while he worked the night shift at a power plant.

The Writer’s Almanac for Sunday, October 5, 2025

Posted on October 5, 2025 - Writer's Almanac

It’s the birthday of Flann O’Brien, born Brian O’Nolan in County Tyrone, Ireland (1911), and best known in his time as Myles na Gopaleen, the writer of a clever and often satirical column for The Irish Times. Today he is most famous for his postmodern novels At Swim-Two-Birds (1939) and The Third Policeman (1967).

The Writer’s Almanac for Saturday, October 4, 2025

Posted on October 4, 2025 - Writer's Almanac

It’s the birthday of the man who said, “Language seems to me intrinsically comic — noises of the tongue, lips, larynx, and palate rendered in ink on paper with the deepest and airiest thoughts in mind and the harshest and tenderest feelings at heart.” The humorist Roy Blount Jr., born in 1941 in Indianapolis.

The Writer’s Almanac for Friday, October 3, 2025

Posted on October 3, 2025 - Writer's Almanac

It’s the birthday of American novelist Gore Vidal, born in West Point, New York (1925). He’s the author of many novels, including Washington, D.C. (1967) and Duluth: A Novel (1983), a satire of the TV show Dallas.

The Writer’s Almanac for Thursday, October 2, 2025

Posted on October 2, 2025 - Writer's Almanac

It’s the birthday of Wallace Stevens, born in Reading, Pennsylvania (1879). His father, a successful lawyer with puritanical leanings, wanted his son Wallace to also grow up to be a lawyer and thereby “make something of himself.”

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