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The Writer’s Almanac for Thursday, January 18, 2024

Posted on January 18, 2024 - Writer's Almanac

It’s the birthday of the humorist and children’s book writer A. A. (Alan Alexander) Milne, born in London, England (1882). He was the author of many successful plays and novels, but though everything he wrote was entertaining, it was all forgettable. More than anything else, Milne wanted to write something that would stand the test of time.

The Writer’s Almanac for Wednesday, January 17, 2024

Posted on January 17, 2024 - Writer's Almanac

It’s the birthday of Anne Brontë, born in Yorkshire (1820). Anne Brontë has been remembered primarily as the third Brontë sister. She was meek and more religious-minded than Charlotte or Emily, and little is known about her life compared to the lives of her sisters. But she was a writer, just as they were.

The Writer’s Almanac for Tuesday, January 16, 2024

Posted on January 16, 2024 - Writer's Almanac

It’s the birthday of essayist and cultural critic Susan Sontag, also born in New York City (1933). She was an intellectual even as a child, buying the Partisan Review and reading Trilling, Rosenberg, and Arendt. She graduated from high school at age 15 and became a serial academic. Susan Sontag said that she preferred to think of herself as a novelist. Her first novel, The Benefactor, was published in 1963. Her most popular, The Volcano Lover, came out in 2002. But it is her essays that made her famous.

The Writer’s Almanac for Monday, January 15, 2024

Posted on January 15, 2024 - Writer's Almanac

It’s the birthday of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., born in Atlanta (1929). It was 1955, early in King’s new tenure as pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama, that Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on one of that city’s busses. King was elected to lead the Montgomery Improvement Association, which was formed with the intention of boycotting the transit system.

The Writer’s Almanac for Sunday, January 14, 2024

Posted on January 14, 2024 - Writer's Almanac

It’s the birthday of American novelist Tillie Olsen, born Tillie Lerner, in Omaha, Nebraska (1913). A young radical, she started work on a novel about the struggles of the working class, but put it aside when she was raising her children. Her short story, “Tell Me a Riddle,” won the O. Henry Award for the best American short story in 1961, and became the title story of her first published book (1962). In Silences (1979), she wrote about the conflict between motherhood and writing.

The Writer’s Almanac for Saturday, January 13, 2024

Posted on January 13, 2024 - Writer's Almanac

It’s the birthday of novelist and short-story writer Elizabeth Searle, born in Philadelphia (1962). She was a special education teacher working with autistic patients in a state hospital, and wrote a number of stories set in that world; they were collected in her first book, My Body to You (1993). Her first novel, A Four-Sided Bed, came out in 1998. Her second, Celebrities in Disgrace, is scheduled to be published this June.

The Writer’s Almanac for Friday, January 12, 2024

Posted on January 12, 2024 - Writer's Almanac

It’s the birthday of American painter John Singer Sargent, born in Florence, Italy (1856), the son of American expatriates. He spent most of his life in Europe — in Paris and London — and created a sensation in 1884 when his portrait of a famous Parisian beauty, “Madame X,” was shown at the Paris Salon and shocked many people with its eroticism.

The Writer’s Almanac for Thursday, January 11, 2024

Posted on January 11, 2024 - Writer's Almanac

It’s the birthday of the American Founding Father Alexander Hamilton (1755). He was born in the British West Indies, but moved to New York City when he was seventeen.

The Writer’s Almanac for Wednesday, January 10, 2024

Posted on January 10, 2024 - Writer's Almanac

It’s the birthday of the American poet Robinson Jeffers, born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (1887), the son of a theologian. He entered medical school at the age of 19, but dropped out; he went to the School of Forestry at the University of Washington, in Seattle, but scrapped that, too, after less than a year.

The Writer’s Almanac for Tuesday, January 9, 2024

Posted on January 9, 2024 - Writer's Almanac

It’s the birthday of French writer and feminist Simone de Beauvoir, born in Paris (1908). She’s the author of novels and autobiographical works, including Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter (1958), but she is best known for her influential study of women in society, The Second Sex (1949). Gloria Steinem said: “If any single human being can be credited with inspiring the woman’s movement, it’s Simone de Beauvoir.”

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