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Writer's Almanac

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The Writer’s Almanac for September 21, 2018

The Writer’s Almanac for September 21, 2018

It’s the birthday of prolific horror writer Stephen King (Portland, Maine, 1947), who said, “The road to hell is paved with adverbs.”

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The Writer’s Almanac for September 20, 2018

The Writer’s Almanac for September 20, 2018

It’s the birthday of one of the greatest editors of the 20th century, Maxwell Perkins (1884). His first big success at Scribner’s was his decision to publish a manuscript by a young man named F. Scott Fitzgerald called This Side of Paradise.

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The Writer’s Almanac for September 19, 2018

The Writer’s Almanac for September 19, 2018

On this day in 1982, computer scientist Scott Fahlman suggested on an online bulletin board that the users type a colon, a hyphen, and a closing parenthesis when their post was intended as a joke. 🙂

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The Writer’s Almanac for September 18, 2018

The Writer’s Almanac for September 18, 2018

It was on this day in 1851 that the first edition of The New York Times was published. Its original name was The New-York Daily Times, and each copy cost one cent.

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The Writer’s Almanac for September 17, 2018

The Writer’s Almanac for September 17, 2018

Today is the birthday of Ken Kesey (1935), author of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.

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The Writer’s Almanac for September 16, 2018

The Writer’s Almanac for September 16, 2018

It’s the birthday of Curious George creator H. A. Rey, who escaped Paris on a pair of bicycles with wife and collaborator Margret Rey just before the Nazi invasion in June 1940.

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The Writer’s Almanac for September 15, 2018

The Writer’s Almanac for September 15, 2018

It was on this day in 1835 that the passengers and crew of the HMS Beagle, including 26-year-old Charles Darwin, reached the Galapagos Islands.

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The Writer’s Almanac for September 14, 2018

The Writer’s Almanac for September 14, 2018

George Frideric Handel completed the Messiah oratorio on this date in 1741. It was originally written for the Easter season, but became a Christmastime favorite.

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The Writer’s Almanac for September 13, 2018

The Writer’s Almanac for September 13, 2018

On this date in 1848, railroad worker Phineas Gage survived having an iron rod driven through his skull. His friends noticed dramatic changes in his personality, and Gage became a famous patient in neuroscience.

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The Writer’s Almanac for September 12, 2018

The Writer’s Almanac for September 12, 2018

It’s the birthday of publisher Alfred A. Knopf, born in New York City in 1892. He started his own publishing house when he was 23 years old.

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