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The Writer’s Almanac for Saturday, February 1, 2025

Posted on February 1, 2025 - Writer's Almanac

It’s the birthday of poet and novelist Langston Hughes, born in Joplin, Missouri (1902). He went to Columbia University for a year, but then he decided that he wanted to learn from traveling instead of books, so he traveled to West Africa and Europe. He moved back to the United States and got a job working as a busboy in a Washington, D.C., hotel, and one day he left three poems he had written next to the plate of the poet Vachel Lindsay.

The Writer’s Almanac for Friday, January 31, 2025

Posted on January 31, 2025 - Writer's Almanac

Today is the birthday of Norman Mailer, born in Long Branch, New Jersey, in 1923. He’s the author of more than 30 books, as well as stage plays, screenplays, poems, essays, and reportage. He’s one of the founders of the “New Journalism” movement: nonfiction reporting that reads like fiction. He courted attention, engaging in public feuds and dropping controversial and inflammatory statements at every opportunity.

The Writer’s Almanac for Thursday, January 30, 2025

Posted on January 30, 2025 - Writer's Almanac

And it is birthday of the 32nd president of the United States, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, born in Hyde Park, New York (1882). His mother, Sara, was in labor with him for more than 24 hours, and the doctor was beginning to fear the worst. He gave Mrs. Roosevelt some chloroform to calm her, and 45 minutes later, young Franklin made his entrance into the world: blue, unmoving, and weighing nearly 10 pounds.

The Writer’s Almanac for Wednesday, January 29, 2025

Posted on January 29, 2025 - Writer's Almanac

It’s the birthday of playwright Anton Chekhov, born in Taganrog, Ukraine (1860). Before he became a playwright and a master of the modern short story, he planned to become a doctor; in fact, he started writing as a way to make extra money to support his family while he was in medical school. He sold some comic sketches to a variety of newspapers in St. Petersburg, and gained a reputation as a good “lowbrow” writer — a skill he inherited from his mother Yevgeniya, who was a gifted storyteller.

The Writer’s Almanac for Tuesday, January 28, 2025

Posted on January 28, 2025 - Writer's Almanac

Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice was published on this date in 1813. Austen had completed the first draft of the book — which was originally titled First Impressions — by August 1797, when she was 21. Her father queried a London bookseller about publishing the novel.

The Writer’s Almanac for Monday, January 27, 2025

Posted on January 27, 2025 - Writer's Almanac

Today is the birthday of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, born in Salzburg, Austria (1756). By the age of five, he was proficient at the violin and piano and had begun composing. In his short lifetime, he composed more than 600 works in almost every genre of the day.

The Writer’s Almanac for Sunday, January 26, 2025

Posted on January 26, 2025 - Writer's Almanac

It’s the birthday of children’s book author and editor Mary Mapes Dodge, born Mary Mapes in New York City (1831). She had long been interested in writing something about Holland, although she’d never been there. She had some Dutch friends who had emigrated from Amsterdam, and she asked them to tell her everything they knew about their home country, what things looked like and smelled like, and the things people did and the food they ate and the stories they told their children at night. She used all of these details to write a children’s book called Hans Brinker; or, The Silver Skates (1865), which became a best-seller.

The Writer’s Almanac for Saturday, January 25, 2025

Posted on January 25, 2025 - Writer's Almanac

On this date in 1993, Sears, Roebuck and Company announced that they would no longer publish their “Big Book” catalog. The catalog was produced for nearly a century, and it made available a dazzling array of East Coast products to remote, rural areas across the country. It was the backbone of the Sears-Roebuck retail empire — R.W. Sears didn’t even get around to opening a brick-and-mortar store until 30 years later — and was so popular that catalogs were sent to American soldiers overseas during both World Wars.

The Writer’s Almanac for Friday, January 24, 2025

Posted on January 24, 2025 - Writer's Almanac

It’s the birthday of novelist Edith Wharton, born in New York City (1862). She wrote about frustrated love in novels like The House of Mirth (1905), Ethan Frome (1911), and The Age of Innocence (1920), for which she became the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize.

The Writer’s Almanac for Thursday, January 23, 2025

Posted on January 23, 2025 - Writer's Almanac

It’s the birthday of architect Henry Mather Greene, born in Brighton, Ohio (1870). Henry and his brother, Charles, founded the famous architecture firm Greene and Greene. As boys, they grew up partly on their mother’s family farm in West Virginia, rambling happily outdoors. As teenagers, they lived in St. Louis, where their father practiced as a respiratory physician. These years in St. Louis had two big influences on their later work.

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