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Writer's Almanac

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The Writer’s Almanac for Monday, July 12, 2021

The Writer’s Almanac for Monday, July 12, 2021

Henry David Thoreau was born on this day in 1817. His classic work “Walden” was written while living on property owned by Ralph Waldo Emmerson.

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The Writer’s Almanac for Sunday, July 11, 2021

The Writer’s Almanac for Sunday, July 11, 2021

The author of “Stuart Little” and “Charlotte’s Web”, E.B. White, was born on this day 1899. He was also a prolific essayist and contributor to the New Yorker magazine.

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The Writer’s Almanac for Saturday, July 10, 2021

The Writer’s Almanac for Saturday, July 10, 2021

It’s the 90th birthday of Alice Munro, a Canadian short-story writer who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2013.

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The Writer’s Almanac for Friday, July 9, 2021

The Writer’s Almanac for Friday, July 9, 2021

Neurologist and author Oliver Sacks was born on this day in 1933. He wrote about complicated medical mysteries of the brain to appeal beyond academia.

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The Writer’s Almanac for Thursday, July 8, 2021

The Writer’s Almanac for Thursday, July 8, 2021

Today is the birthday of columnist and best-selling novelist Anna Quindlen (1953), author of “How Reading Changed My Life” and “A Short Guide to a Happy Life.”

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The Writer’s Almanac for Wednesday, July 7, 2021

The Writer’s Almanac for Wednesday, July 7, 2021

Today is the birthday of American genetics pioneer Nettie Stevens (1861) who discovered that the combinations XX and XY in chromosomes determined the sex of an organism.

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The Writer’s Almanac for Tuesday, July 6, 2021

The Writer’s Almanac for Tuesday, July 6, 2021

Louis Pasteur successfully tested his rabies vaccine on this day in 1885 on a nine-year-old boy named Joseph Meister who was bitten by a rabid dog.

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The Writer’s Almanac for Monday, July 5, 2021

The Writer’s Almanac for Monday, July 5, 2021

“Listen carefully to first criticisms made of your work… then cultivate it. That’s the only part of your work that’s individual and worth keeping.” — Jean Cocteau, born 1889.

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The Writer’s Almanac for Sunday, July 4, 2021

The Writer’s Almanac for Sunday, July 4, 2021

It’s the birthday of Nathaniel Hawthorne, 1804. Author of “The Scarlett Letter” one of the first mass-produced books in America.

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The Writer’s Almanac for Saturday, July 3, 2021

The Writer’s Almanac for Saturday, July 3, 2021

It’s the birthday of Franz Kafka (1883), author of “The Metamorphosis” which reads “Calm —indeed the calmest— reflection might be better than the most confused decisions.”

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