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The Writer’s Almanac for Wednesday, December 20, 2023

Posted on December 20, 2023 - Writer's Almanac

It’s the birthday of fiction writer Hortense Calisher, born in New York City (1911)—who wrote almost exclusively about New York, where she grew up and lived her entire life. She wrote novels, but is most highly regarded for her short stories, which began appearing in The New Yorker in the 1940s. She once said that the action of a short story is “an apocalypse served in a very small cup.”

The Writer’s Almanac for Wednesday, December 20, 2023

Posted on December 20, 2023 - Writer's Almanac

The Writer’s Almanac for Tuesday, December 19, 2023

Posted on December 19, 2023 - Writer's Almanac

On this day in 1957, The Music Man by Meredith Wilson opened in New York at the Majestic Theater in Manhattan. It’s the story of a small-town librarian named Marian Paroo and a traveling con man, Harold Hill, who sells band instruments to the boys of the town, and plans to skip town before the instruments arrive. It ran for 1,375 performances.

The Writer’s Almanac for Monday, December 18, 2023

Posted on December 18, 2023 - Writer's Almanac

It’s the birthday of baseball legend Ty Cobb, born Tyrus Raymond Cobb, in Narrows, Georgia (1886). Cobb was a 175-pounder who stood 6-foot-1, batted left-handed, and threw right-handed. He played most of his career for the Detroit Tigers, and by the time he retired from baseball in 1928, he had set more than 90 records, including highest lifetime batting average (.367), most batting titles (12), and most runs scored (2,245).

The Writer’s Almanac for Sunday, December 17, 2023

Posted on December 17, 2023 - Writer's Almanac

Nobody is sure exactly when Ludwig van Beethoven was born, but he was baptized on this day in the city of Bonn, which would eventually become part of Germany (1770). His father was inspired by the example of Mozart to try to turn Beethoven into a musical prodigy at a young age. Beethoven managed to publish his first piece of music when he was just 12.

The Writer’s Almanac for Saturday, December 16, 2023

Posted on December 16, 2023 - Writer's Almanac

It’s the birthday of Jane Austen, born in Steventon, Hampshire, England (1775). Austen is the only novelist published before Charles Dickens whose books still sell thousands of copies every year. Although she never got married herself, but she is best known for books about women who do get married, including Sense and Sensibility (1811) and Pride and Prejudice (1813). She did fall in love as a young woman, but the man she loved had no money for marriage. Later, she got a proposal from an older wealthy gentleman. She said yes, but then found herself unable to sleep that night. In the morning she did something that was almost unheard of at the time: she told her fiancé that she had changed her mind, because she did not love him.

The Writer’s Almanac for Friday, December 15, 2023

Posted on December 15, 2023 - Writer's Almanac

It was on this day in 1791 that the Bill of Rights was adopted by the United States, becoming the most sacred and debated laws in the history of our country. One of the people most responsible for the content of the Bill of Rights was a man named George Mason, who might not have even been a part of the process if he hadn’t been a lifelong friend of George Washington’s. He was a wealthy landowner in Virginia, and he liked to debate political ideas, but he wasn’t interested in politics because he shied away from public life.

The Writer’s Almanac for Thursday, December 14, 2023

Posted on December 14, 2023 - Writer's Almanac

It was on this day in 1911 that the Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen and his team became the first people ever to reach the South Pole on the continent of Antarctica. As far as we know, Antarctica was the last continent on earth to be explored by people. No one knows for sure who saw it first, but a Polynesian legend from New Zealand tells of a man in a war canoe sailing south and discovering a frozen ocean.

The Writer’s Almanac for Wednesday, December 13, 2023

Posted on December 13, 2023 - Writer's Almanac

It was on this day in 1577 that Sir Francis Drake set out on a three-year-long journey around the world. At that time the Pacific was controlled by the Spanish and it was forbidden to all but Spanish ships. But Queen Elizabeth I commissioned Drake to undertake a top-secret mission to sail around the southern tip of South America and explore the Pacific Coast of the Americas. Drake left for the voyage on this day in 1577.

The Writer’s Almanac for Tuesday, December 12, 2023

Posted on December 12, 2023 - Writer's Almanac

It’s the birthday of Frank Sinatra, born in Hoboken, New Jersey (1915). His mother was a midwife and a saloon owner, and she encouraged him to have big dreams as a kid. He spent a lot of his childhood sitting on the Hoboken wharves, staring at New York City, imagining how he could make a name for himself. It was his uncle who introduced him to music, and bought him a ukulele.

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