Albums APHC Clips Audio Events Prairie Home Archives Songs Writer's Almanac
Writer's Almanac

To subscribe to the Writer’s Almanac Anniversary Episode email, which includes the unedited text and audio from one daily anniversary episode selected from the archive, click here >>>

To browse archived episodes of The Writer’s Almanac from before 2017, click here >>>

• • • • •

To support The Writer’s Almanac Anniversary Episodes newsletter, please consider “buying” a donation here >>>

You can also buy a paid subscription to the Anniversary Episode newsletter here >>>

Checks may be made out to Prairie Home Productions, LLC and mailed to:

Prairie Home Productions
P.O. Box 2090
Minneapolis, MN 55402

(Note: donations to LLCs are not tax-deductible)

• • • • •

The Writer’s Almanac for Wednesday, July 20, 2022

The Writer’s Almanac for Wednesday, July 20, 2022

Today is the 89th birthday of Cormac McCarthy. A quintessentially American writer whose books “The Road,” “No Country for Old Men,” and “Blood Meridian” feature the American west.

Read More
The Writer’s Almanac for Tuesday, July 19, 2022

The Writer’s Almanac for Tuesday, July 19, 2022

It was on this day in 1954 that the first part of the Lord of the Rings trilogy came out, “The Fellowship of the Ring.” The publisher printed just 3,500 copies, but it turned out to be incredibly popular. It went into a second printing in just six weeks.

Read More
The Writer’s Almanac for Monday, July 18, 2022

The Writer’s Almanac for Monday, July 18, 2022

On this day in 1955, the first Disney theme park opened to the public in Anaheim, California. It was called “Disneyland.”

Read More
The Writer’s Almanac for Sunday, July 17, 2022

The Writer’s Almanac for Sunday, July 17, 2022

It’s the birthday of detective novelist Erle Stanley Gardner, born in Malden, Massachusetts (1889). He liked working as a lawyer, but it wasn’t enough to keep him busy, so he started writing detective fiction for pulp magazines.

Read More
The Writer’s Almanac for Saturday, July 16, 2022

The Writer’s Almanac for Saturday, July 16, 2022

It was on this day in 1951 that The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger was published. Despite Salinger’s hesitations about publicity, The Catcher in the Rye was a sensation. It became a best-seller almost immediately, reaching No. 1 on the New York Times best-seller list after two weeks

Read More
The Writer’s Almanac for Friday July 15, 2022

The Writer’s Almanac for Friday July 15, 2022

Today is the birthday of Richard Russo, 199. An American whose novel “Empire Falls” won the Pulitzer Prize.

Read More
The Writer’s Almanac for Thursday July 14, 2022

The Writer’s Almanac for Thursday July 14, 2022

Today is Bastille Day in France, the anniversary of the day in 1789 that an angry mob of revolutionaries stormed the Bastille in Paris, a tipping point in the French Revolution.

Read More
The Writer’s Almanac for Wednesday July 13, 2022

The Writer’s Almanac for Wednesday July 13, 2022

Today marks the birth of British mystery writer Dorothy L. (Leigh) Sayers, (1893). One of the first women to graduate from Oxford University, she worked in advertising before becoming a novelist.

Read More
The Writer’s Almanac for Tuesday, July 12, 2022

The Writer’s Almanac for Tuesday, July 12, 2022

“Readers are plentiful; thinkers are rare.” A quote from sociologist and writer Harriet Martineau, born in England, 1902. Never having published a book, her serial “Illustrations of Political Economy” sold 10,000 copies a month.

Read More
The Writer’s Almanac for Monday July 11, 2022

The Writer’s Almanac for Monday July 11, 2022

Today is the birthday of Harold Bloom (1930) who said “Reading well is one of the great pleasures that solitude can afford you, because it is, at least in my experience, the most healing of pleasures.”

Read More