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The Writer’s Almanac for Wednesday, October 2, 2024

Posted on October 2, 2024 - Writer's Almanac

It’s the birthday of novelist Graham Greene, born in Berkhamsted, England (1904). He came from a well-off family, but he had an unhappy childhood — he was frequently depressed and even went to psychoanalysis when he was 16, a rare thing at the time. He graduated from Oxford, then began his career writing essays and reviews. Greene was an avowed atheist, but he had been questioning his faith since his days at boarding school.

The Writer’s Almanac for Tuesday, October 1, 2024

Posted on October 1, 2024 - Writer's Almanac

It’s the birthday of author Tim O’Brien, born in Worthington, Minnesota. He graduated from Macalester College in St. Paul and went to Harvard for graduate school. He was drafted to go to the Vietnam War, and he went, even though he was opposed to it. Before he went off to Vietnam, he was spending the day in northern Minnesota and had the chance to cross the border into Canada, but he decided not to. He said later: “I did not want people to think badly of me. My conscience told me to run, but I was ashamed of my conscience, ashamed to be doing the right thing.”

The Writer’s Almanac for Monday, September 30, 2024

Posted on September 30, 2024 - Writer's Almanac

It’s the birthday of American writer Truman Capote, born in New Orleans (1924). Even as a child, Capote wanted to become famous. He moved with his mother to New York City and applied to the prestigious Trinity School. He was given an IQ test as an entrance exam, and he scored 215, the highest in the school’s history.

The Writer’s Almanac for Sunday, September 29, 2024

Posted on September 29, 2024 - Writer's Almanac

Because today is the feast of Saint Michael, it is the day deemed to have been the birthday of Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, author of Don Quixote and Spain’s greatest literary figure. Cervantes’s exact date of birth is unknown, although it was the custom in Spain to name a baby for the feast day on which he was born, and given that Cervantes was baptized just 10 days later, on October 9th, it is probable that today was his birthday.

The Writer’s Almanac for Saturday, September 28, 2024

Posted on September 28, 2024 - Writer's Almanac

It was on this day in 1928 that Scottish bacteriologist Alexander Fleming peered into a petri dish at his basement laboratory in London and noticed a blue-green mold growing. The mold, he observed, was killing the staph bacteria he’d been cultivating in that petri dish. He called the mold “penicillin.” Penicillin is now considered the world’s first “miracle drug,” and it sparked the modern era of antibiotic development.

The Writer’s Almanac for Friday, September 27, 2024

Posted on September 27, 2024 - Writer's Almanac

1905 was a banner year for Albert Einstein: his annus mirabilis. It was the year he completed his doctoral thesis: “A new determination of molecular dimensions.” And he also published four groundbreaking papers in the prestigious German journal Annalen der Physik (Annals of Physics). In March, he submitted a paper that proved that light could behave as a particle as well as a wave, and gave rise to quantum theory (“On a heuristic point of view concerning the production and transformation of light”).

The Writer’s Almanac for Thursday, September 26, 2024

Posted on September 26, 2024 - Writer's Almanac

It’s the birthday of composer George Gershwin, born Jacob Gershowitz, in Brooklyn, New York (1898). He was born to Russian immigrants and spent his childhood in Brooklyn and the Lower East Side. As a young boy, he was more athletic and sociable than he was musical. But he went to work on Tin Pan Alley for the Jerome Remick Company handing out the publishers’ newest sheet music to any potential customers who wandered by. He eventually began composing his own songs.

The Writer’s Almanac for Wednesday, September 25, 2024

Posted on September 25, 2024 - Writer's Almanac

It’s the birthday of children’s author and illustrator Shel Silverstein, born Sheldon Allan Silverstein in Chicago (1930). As a youngster himself, he wanted to play baseball or be popular with girls, Silverstein once said, but he couldn’t play ball and he couldn’t dance. So he wrote and drew to occupy himself, developing a signature style and wit that would delight children all over the world.

The Writer’s Almanac for Tuesday, September 24, 2024

Posted on September 24, 2024 - Writer's Almanac

It’s the birthday of “Blind” Lemon Jefferson, born on a farm in Couchman, Texas, in about 1893. There is a lot of conflicting information about Jefferson and most of it comes from others’ memories of him. Census records and his draft registration don’t agree on a date or even a year of birth. There are only two confirmed photographs of him.

The Writer’s Almanac for Monday, September 23, 2024

Posted on September 23, 2024 - Writer's Almanac

It was on this day in 1806 that Meriwether Lewis and William Clark returned to St. Louis, Missouri, after a journey that had lasted almost two and a half years and covered 8,000 miles. Lewis, Clark, and their crew had traveled all the way to the Pacific Ocean and back, exploring the new territory that Thomas Jefferson had added to the nation through the Louisiana Purchase.

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