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Writer's Almanac

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The Writer’s Almanac for November 20, 2018

The Writer’s Almanac for November 20, 2018

On this date in 1820, a sperm whale attacked a whaling ship off the coast of South America, an event that inspired Herman Melville to write Moby-Dick.

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The Writer’s Almanac for November 19, 2018

The Writer’s Almanac for November 19, 2018

On this date in 1863, President Abraham Lincoln delivered his Gettysburg Address, which was only ten sentences long and which lasted about 2 minutes.

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The Writer’s Almanac for November 18, 2018

The Writer’s Almanac for November 18, 2018

It’s the birthday of poet and novelist Margaret Atwood, who wrote The Handmaid’s Tale, now a hugely popular online television series.

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The Writer’s Almanac for November 17, 2018

The Writer’s Almanac for November 17, 2018

It was on this day in 1558 that Queen Elizabeth I acceded to the English throne, and then reigned for 45 years.

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The Writer’s Almanac for November 16, 2018

The Writer’s Almanac for November 16, 2018

It’s the birthday of Chinua Achebe, author of “Things Fall Apart” (1958), which was one of the first novels ever written about European colonization from the point of view of the colonized native people.

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The Writer’s Almanac for November 15, 2018

The Writer’s Almanac for November 15, 2018

It’s the birthday of poet Marianne Moore, who once said, “I never knew anyone with a passion for words who had as much difficulty in saying things as I do.”

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The Writer’s Almanac for November 13, 2018

The Writer’s Almanac for November 13, 2018

It’s the birthday of the man who wrote “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,” Robert Louis Stevenson (Edinburgh, Scotland, 1850).

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The Writer’s Almanac for November 14, 2018

The Writer’s Almanac for November 14, 2018

It’s the birthday of the artist who said, “I would like to paint the way a bird sings”: Claude Monet.

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The Writer’s Almanac for November 12, 2018

The Writer’s Almanac for November 12, 2018

It was on this day in 1954 that Ellis Island formally closed its doors after processing more than 12 million immigrants to the United States.

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The Writer’s Almanac for November 11, 2018

The Writer’s Almanac for November 11, 2018

It’s the birthday of author Kurt Vonnegut (1922), who advised other writers to “Make characters want something right away — even if it’s only a glass of water.”

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