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The Writer’s Almanac for Wednesday, August 9, 2023

Posted on August 9, 2023 - Writer's Almanac

It’s the birthday of the creator of Mary Poppins, P.L. (Pamela Lyndon) Travers, born Helen Lyndon Goff, in Mayborough, Queensland, Australia (1899). Before the publication of Mary Poppins, she adopted P.L. Travers as her literary pseudonym.

The Writer’s Almanac for Tuesday, August 8, 2023

Posted on August 8, 2023 - Writer's Almanac

It’s the birthday of writer Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings , born in Washington, D.C. (1896). As a girl, she loved to write, and she published stories and essays in the children’s section of newspapers. As a young wife, she moved to Rochester, New York, where she wrote for a society magazine. She suggested to the editor of the Rochester Times-Union that she write a daily column in verse, called “Songs of a Housewife.” The editor was unconvinced, but he finally agreed to let her try. Her column was extremely popular, syndicated in 50 newspapers. She wrote poems about cooking, being a mother, gardening, neighbors, housework, and the weather. Her first column was called “The Smell of Country Sausage,” and it began: “I let the spiced aromas / Call up the kitchen stair / Before I have my table set / The family all is there.” She wrote 495 columns of “Songs of a Housewife.”

The Writer’s Almanac for Monday, August 7, 2023

Posted on August 7, 2023 - Writer's Almanac

t’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. They lived in Java and Sumatra for a few years, and that’s where she picked up her eventual byname. “Mata Hari” is a Malay term for the sunrise, and means “the eye of the day.”
The exact nature of her spy activities is not clear, but she probably didn’t engage in much actual espionage. She was well known by sight all over Europe.

The Writer’s Almanac for Sunday, August 6, 2023

Posted on August 6, 2023 - Writer's Almanac

Anne Hathaway, the wife of William Shakespeare died on this day in 1623, at the age of 67. Not much is known about Hathaway aside from mentions in legal documents, but we do know she was 26 and pregnant with an 18-year-old Shakespeare’s child when they married. She gave birth to their daughter six months after the wedding, and fraternal twins two years after that.

The Writer’s Almanac for Saturday, August 5, 2023

Posted on August 5, 2023 - Writer's Almanac

Today is the birthday of Wendell Berry, born near Port Royal, in Henry County, Kentucky (1934). His family — on both sides — have farmed tobacco in Henry County for at least five generations. His father had a law degree, and his brother was a lawyer, but Berry knew his brain didn’t work that way. He went to the University of Kentucky and then received a prestigious Wallace Stegner Fellowship to study creative writing at Stanford, mentored by Stegner himself.

The Writer’s Almanac for Friday, August 4, 2023

Posted on August 4, 2023 - Writer's Almanac

Today is the birthday of jazz musician Louis Armstrong (1901), who earned the nickname “Dippermouth” as boy singing for pennies on the streets of New Orleans. He would scoop up the coins and stuff them in his mouth so the bigger boys couldn’t steal them. Later, his effusive style of playing, in particular the way he blew high C’s on his trumpet, would earn him the name “Satchelmouth,” later shortened to “Satchmo.”

The Writer’s Almanac for Thursday, August 3, 2023

Posted on August 3, 2023 - Writer's Almanac

Today is the birthday of the American novelist, essayist, and activist James Baldwin, author of Go Tell It on the Mountain. Baldwin was born in Harlem, New York, in 1924, the oldest of nine children in a family that was dominated by his strict, religious stepfather, a Pentecostal minister with whom James had a difficult relationship and who brought his son into the ministry when he was just 14. James Baldwin’s influence on other American artists, whether of spirit or love or style, is undeniable. He and the poet Langston Hughes were responsible for getting the singer Nina Simone involved in the civil rights movement. Maya Angelou, remembering Baldwin in The New York Times after his death, said that he “set the stage” for her to write I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.

The Writer’s Almanac for Wednesday, August 2, 2023

Posted on August 2, 2023 - Writer's Almanac

Today is the birthday of the American novelist, essayist, and activist James Baldwin, author of Go Tell It on the Mountain. Baldwin was born in Harlem, New York, in 1924, the oldest of nine children in a family that was dominated by his strict, religious stepfather, a Pentecostal minister with whom James had a difficult relationship and who brought his son into the ministry when he was just 14. James Baldwin’s influence on other American artists, whether of spirit or love or style, is undeniable. He and the poet Langston Hughes were responsible for getting the singer Nina Simone involved in the civil rights movement. Maya Angelou, remembering Baldwin in The New York Times after his death, said that he “set the stage” for her to write I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.

The Writer’s Almanac for Tuesday, August 1, 2023

Posted on August 1, 2023 - Writer's Almanac

Herman Melville was born on this day in 1819 in New York City. The Melvilles were a family of Revolutionary War heroes and once-prominent merchants but, by young Herman’s time, the family was in decline and the boy was raised in an atmosphere of financial instability and refined pretense. It took readers until the 1920s to catch up to the prose, style, and power of Moby Dick. But once they did, appreciation never again lagged, and Melville’s masterpiece is now regarded as one of the greatest novels ever written.

The Writer’s Almanac for Monday, July 31, 2023

Posted on July 31, 2023 - Writer's Almanac

Today is the birthday of the woman Teddy Roosevelt once called “the most dangerous woman in America” when she was 87 years old. Mary Harris Jones, or “Mother Jones” was born to a tenant farmer in Cork, Ireland, in 1837. Her family fled the potato famine when she was just 10, resettling in Toronto. She trained to be a teacher and took a job in Memphis, where on the eve of the Civil War she married a union foundry worker and started a family. But in 1867, a yellow fever epidemic swept through the city, taking the lives of her husband and all four children

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The Writer’s Almanac for Wednesday, August 9, 2023

The Writer’s Almanac for Tuesday, August 8, 2023

The Writer’s Almanac for Monday, August 7, 2023

The Writer’s Almanac for Sunday, August 6, 2023

The Writer’s Almanac for Saturday, August 5, 2023

The Writer’s Almanac for Friday, August 4, 2023

The Writer’s Almanac for Thursday, August 3, 2023

The Writer’s Almanac for Wednesday, August 2, 2023

The Writer’s Almanac for Tuesday, August 1, 2023

The Writer’s Almanac for Monday, July 31, 2023