The Writer’s Almanac for Saturday, August 12, 2023

It’s the birthday of American film director Cecil B. DeMille, whose epic Hollywood films, like The Ten Commandments (1956) and Samson and Delilah (1949), have grossed over $30 billion worldwide.

DeMille as born in Massachusetts (1881), but grew up in Washington, North Carolina. His father was a playwright and also a lay reader in the Episcopal church. He read to his children every night from the Bible and classic literature. Though he eventually stopped going to church, DeMille continued to believe in prayer and the power of biblical stories. He once said, “My ministry has been to make religious movies and to get more people to read the Bible than anyone else ever has.”

The Writer’s Almanac for Friday, August 11, 2023

It’s the birthday of American poet and critic Louise Bogan. Bogan was the poetry editor of The New Yorker for almost 40 years.
In 1945, Louise Bogan was named the fourth poet laureate of the Library of Congress. When she retired from The New Yorker in 1969, she said: “No more pronouncements on lousy verse. No more hidden competition. No more struggling not to be a square.” She died a year after leaving the magazine.

The Writer’s Almanac for Thursday, August 10, 2023

It was on this date in 1519 that the explorer Ferdinand Magellan set off to sail around the world. Although he was Portuguese, Magellan had sworn allegiance to Spain, and he began the journey with a fleet of five ships and 270 men to see if he could accomplish what Columbus had failed to: find a navigable route to Asia that didn’t involve going around Africa.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.