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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.”

The Writer’s Almanac for Wednesday, October 1, 2025

Posted on October 1, 2025 - Writer's Almanac

It’s the birthday of Tim O’Brien, born in Worthington, Minnesota (1946), who was drafted to fight in Vietnam the summer he graduated from college. He said, “Even when I was getting on the plane for boot camp, I couldn’t believe any of it was happening to me, someone who hated Boy Scouts and bugs and rifles.” But it gave him something to write about.

The Writer’s Almanac for Tuesday, September 30, 2025

Posted on September 30, 2025 - Writer's Almanac

It’s the birthday of W.S. Merwin, born in New York City (1927). He was the son of a Presbyterian minister. He began writing his first poems when he was four or five years old. He majored in English at Princeton, then stuck around for an extra year as a graduate student studying Modern Romance languages.

The Writer’s Almanac for Monday, September 29, 2025

Posted on September 29, 2025 - Writer's Almanac

It was on this day in 1982 that the first deaths in a series of “Tylenol killings” were reported in the Chicago area. The first victim, a 12-year-old girl, had awakened one morning with a sore throat and taken from her parents one Extra Strength Tylenol capsule. A couple of hours later, her parents found the girl lying on the bathroom floor and rushed her to the hospital, where she was pronounced dead.

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