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The Writer’s Almanac for Thursday, July 20, 2023

Posted on July 20, 2023 - Writer's Almanac

It was on this day in 1875 that the largest recorded swarm of locusts in American history descended upon the Great Plains. It was a swarm about 1,800 miles long, 110 miles wide, from Canada down to Texas. North America was home to the most numerous species of locust on earth, the Rocky Mountain locust. At the height of their population, their total mass was equivalent to the 60 million bison that had inhabited the West. The Rocky Mountain locust is believed to have been the most common macroscopic creature of any kind ever to inhabit the planet.

The Writer’s Almanac for Wednesday, July 19, 2023

Posted on July 19, 2023 - Writer's Almanac

It’s the birthday of French Impressionist Edgar Degas, born in Paris (1834), best known for his paintings and pastels of ballet dancers and his bronze sculptures of ballerinas and racehorses. After he became completely blind in one eye, and nearly so in the other, he began to work in sculpture, which he called “a blind man’s art.” Degas remained a bachelor his entire life, saying, “There is love and there is work, and we only have one heart.”

The Writer’s Almanac for Tuesday, July 18, 2023

Posted on July 18, 2023 - Writer's Almanac

The Great Fire of Rome began in the late evening hours on this date in 64 A.D. The fire raged for six days, during which time Emperor Nero either acted heroically to contain the fire and provide for his people, or played his lyre and watched the city burn — depending on whose version you believe. There are no surviving primary accounts of the fire, so we have to base everything we know on hearsay.

The Writer’s Almanac for Monday, July 17, 2023

Posted on July 17, 2023 - Writer's Almanac

It’s the birthday of detective novelist Erle Stanley Gardner born in Malden, Massachusetts (1889). He earned money through high school by participating in illegal boxing matches. He went on to Valparaiso University to study law, but after only a month, he got kicked out for boxing. So he studied law on his own, and he passed the California bar exam when he was 21. He went to his swearing-in ceremony after a boxing match, and said that he was probably the only attorney in the state to be sworn in with two black eyes.

The Writer’s Almanac for Sunday, July 16, 2023

Posted on July 16, 2023 - Writer's Almanac

J.D. Salinger’s novel The Catcher in the Rye was published on this date in 1951. It is Salinger’s only novel. It’s one of the most banned books in American history. It’s also one of the most frequently taught in high schools, even though Salinger didn’t intend the book for teenage readers.

The Writer’s Almanac for Saturday, July 15, 2023

Posted on July 15, 2023 - Writer's Almanac

Today is the birthday of Iris Murdoch, born in Dublin (1919) and raised in London. Her parents met in Dublin during World War I. Her English father’s cavalry regiment was stationed there, and on his way to church one Sunday, he met a girl who sang in the church choir. They married in 1918. Iris was an only child, with a happy home life. She wrote her first novel, Under the Net, in 1954. Reviews were generally positive, and the book was named one of Modern Library’s 100 Best English-language Novels of the 20th Century. Murdoch went on to write 25 more novels.

The Writer’s Almanac for Friday, July 14, 2023

Posted on July 14, 2023 - Writer's Almanac

Today is the birthday of Woodrow Wilson — aka “Woody” — Guthrie born in Okemah, Oklahoma (1912). Woody Guthrie never finished high school, but he spent his spare time reading books at the local public library. He took occasional jobs as a sign painter and started playing music on a guitar he found in the street.

The Writer’s Almanac for Thursday, July 13, 2023

Posted on July 13, 2023 - Writer's Almanac

It was on this day in 1863 that the New York City Draft Riots began, the bloodiest riot in American history. The rioters were working-class white men, mostly Irish-Americans. They were rioting against a new draft law put into place by President Lincoln, but they were angry about much more than that, and the draft law was just the final straw.

The Writer’s Almanac for Wednesday, July 12, 2023

Posted on July 12, 2023 - Writer's Almanac

It’s the birthday of poet Pablo Neruda, born Neftali Ricardo Reyes Basoalto in Parral, Chile (1904). In 1923, when he was 19, he sold all his possessions in order to publish his first book, Crepusculario (Twilight). Because his father didn’t approve of his writing poetry, he published it under the pen name Pablo Neruda. In 1927, he began a second career as a diplomat. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature in 1971. In his Nobel lecture he said, “All paths lead to the same goal: to convey to others what we are.”

The Writer’s Almanac for Tuesday, July 11, 2023

Posted on July 11, 2023 - Writer's Almanac

Today is the birthday of Jhumpa Lahiri, born in London (1967). Her parents were Bengali immigrants from India. When Lahiri was two years old, her father got a job as a librarian at the University of Rhode Island, and they moved to America. On weekends, the whole family would get together with other Bengali families, sometimes driving for hours to other states for a party. The adults cooked Bengali food and spoke Bengali and reminisced; the kids all watched television together. And even though she’s lived in America from toddlerhood, she struggles with not feeling American. “For me,” she says, “there is sort of a half-way feeling.”

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