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The Writer’s Almanac for Wednesday, August 7, 2024

Posted on August 7, 2024 - Writer's Almanac

On this day in 1934, the U.S. Court of Appeals ruled that the novel Ulysses, by James Joyce, was not obscene. It had been banned in the United States in 1920, and though it was a big-seller on the black market, and Joyce knew he was losing a lot of money to pirate publishers, the only way to fight the ban was to provoke the government into a new obscenity trial.

The Writer’s Almanac for Tuesday, August 6, 2024

Posted on August 6, 2024 - Writer's Almanac

It’s the birthday of Alfred, Lord Tennyson, born in Lincolnshire, England (1809). Tennyson gave us some of the most familiar lines in English poetry, including “‘Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all” and “Theirs not to reason why, theirs but to do and die.”

The Writer’s Almanac for Monday, August 5, 2024

Posted on August 5, 2024 - Writer's Almanac

Today in 1884, the cornerstone of the Statue of Liberty’s pedestal was laid. It was largely funded by an auction of contributed art and literary works. Emma Lazarus, 34 years old at the time, donated a poem for the occasion, which she titled “The New Colossus.”

The Writer’s Almanac for Sunday, August 4, 2024

Posted on August 4, 2024 - Writer's Almanac

It’s the birthday of the English Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, born in Sussex, England (1792). His father was rich, landed, a member of the aristocracy and of Parliament, and had a huge inheritance set aside for his young son. Shelley went to prestigious English schools and enrolled at Oxford University where he was eventually expelled for writing a pamphlet called “The Necessity of Atheism.”

The Writer’s Almanac for Saturday, August 3, 2024

Posted on August 3, 2024 - Writer's Almanac

It’s the birthday of one of America’s first embedded reporters, Ernie Pyle, born Ernest Taylor Pyle in a little white farmhouse near Dana, Indiana (1900). In the fall of 1940, Pyle went to London to travel around with Yank troops, and they went to Africa, Italy, and France. He wrote for newspapers about World War II in the form of daily letters home from the war front. When he covered the war, he never made it look glamorous.

The Writer’s Almanac for Friday, August 2, 2024

Posted on August 2, 2024 - Writer's Almanac

It’s the birthday of writer James Baldwin born in Harlem Hospital in New York City (1924). He was the oldest of a family of nine children, and he was often put in charge of his younger siblings. He spent much of his childhood with a baby in one hand and a book in the other, reading and rereading Uncle Tom’s Cabin and A Tale of Two Cities.

The Writer’s Almanac for Thursday, August 1, 2024

Posted on August 1, 2024 - Writer's Almanac

It’s the birthday of the first professional woman astronomer, Maria Mitchell, born in Nantucket, Massachusetts (1818). She was the third child of 10 born into a New England Quaker family. She was taught a bit by her father but largely self-educated. Her parents encouraged their daughters as well as their sons to excel, and she became a noted scientist, which was very rare for a woman back then.

The Writer’s Almanac for Wednesday, July 31, 2024

Posted on July 31, 2024 - Writer's Almanac

It’s the birthday of writer J.K. Rowling, born Joanne Rowling in Yate, England (1965). Rowling grew up in rural England. She tried writing a couple of novels but never finished them. One day, on a cross-country train trip, the idea of Harry Potter just appeared in her mind. She didn’t have a pen to write things down, so she said: “Rather than try to write it, I had to think it. And I think that was a very good thing. I was besieged by a mass of detail, and if it didn’t survive that journey, it probably wasn’t worth remembering.” As soon as she got home, she started writing what she did remember.

The Writer’s Almanac for Tuesday, July 30, 2024

Posted on July 30, 2024 - Writer's Almanac

It’s the birthday of American blues guitarist Buddy Guy, born George Guy in Lettsworth, Louisiana (1936). He made his own guitar when he was 13, and learned to play it by listening to the records of John Lee Hooker and other blues artists. He soon began playing clubs in Baton Rouge, and moved to Chicago in 1957, when he was 21.

The Writer’s Almanac for Monday, July 29, 2024

Posted on July 29, 2024 - Writer's Almanac

Today is the birthday of documentary filmmaker Ken Burns (1953). He was born in Brooklyn, New York, but he grew up in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where his father was a professor at the University of Michigan. He studied film and design at Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts, and his first major documentary film was Brooklyn Bridge in 1981.

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