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The Writer’s Almanac for Sunday, March 3, 2024

Posted on March 3, 2024 - Writer's Almanac

It’s the birthday of the host of This American Life: Ira Glass, born in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1959. He got into radio, he says, “totally by accident.” It was 1978, he was 19, had just finished his freshman year of college, and was looking for a summer job with an ad agency or a TV station.

The Writer’s Almanac for Saturday, March 2, 2024

Posted on March 2, 2024 - Writer's Almanac

It’s the birthday of a man considered to be the most popular children’s book writer in American history, the best-selling children’s book writer of all time, and a man who revolutionized the way children learned to read: Theodor Geisel, better known as Dr. Seuss, was born in Springfield, Massachusetts, on this day in 1904.

The Writer’s Almanac for Friday, March 1, 2024

Posted on March 1, 2024 - Writer's Almanac

It’s the birthday of poet Robert Lowell, born in Boston (1917), who twice won the Pulitzer Prize and whose work established the Confessional style of poetry in America. Among his most famous poems: “The Quaker Graveyard in Nantucket,” “Skunk Hour,” “For the Union Dead,” “Fall 1961,” “To Speak of Woe That Is in Marriage,” and “Epilogue.”

The Writer’s Almanac for Thursday, February 29, 2024

Posted on February 29, 2024 - Writer's Almanac

It’s Leap Year Day today. It’s also ‘Ladies Day’, the one day in four years when shy women can propose to eligible bachelors.

The Writer’s Almanac for Wednesday, February 28, 2024

Posted on February 28, 2024 - Writer's Almanac

It’s the birthday of the man who almost beat Watson and Crick to the discovery of DNA, the chemist Linus Pauling, born in Oswego, Oregon (1901). He studied chemistry at Oregon Agricultural College, and then won a Guggenheim Fellowship, which he used to go abroad to study the new field of quantum mechanics with some of the most important physicists of the era.

The Writer’s Almanac for Tuesday, February 27, 2024

Posted on February 27, 2024 - Writer's Almanac

It’s the birthday of the poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, born in Portland, Maine (1807). He was the most popular American poet in his lifetime, and one of the first American poets to be taken seriously abroad.He was something of a child prodigy, and entered Bowdoin College when he was just 14, where he was in the same class as Nathaniel Hawthorne. When Longfellow graduated, Bowdoin offered him a chair in modern languages, and he went on to teach German, French, Spanish, and Italian.

The Writer’s Almanac for Monday, February 26, 2024

Posted on February 26, 2024 - Writer's Almanac

It’s the birthday of Victor Hugo, born in Besançon, France (1802). In the English-speaking world, he’s mainly remembered as the man who wrote Les Misérables (1865) and The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1831), but in France he’s considered one of the great French poets as well.

The Writer’s Almanac for Sunday, February 25, 2024

Posted on February 25, 2024 - Writer's Almanac

On this day in 1950, “Your Show of Shows” debuted, one of the most successful variety shows television has ever seen. Starring Sid Caesar and Imogene Coca, it featured ninety minutes of original comedy sketches performed live in front of a studio audience.

The Writer’s Almanac for Saturday, February 24, 2024

Posted on February 24, 2024 - Writer's Almanac

It’s the birthday of Wilhelm Karl Grimm, born in Hanau, Germany (1786), one of the Grimm brothers who collected German folk tales, including “Hansel and Gretel,” “Cinderella,” “Rumpelstiltskin,” and “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.”

The Writer’s Almanac for Friday, February 23, 2024

Posted on February 23, 2024 - Writer's Almanac

It’s the birthday of diarist Samuel Pepys, born in London, England (1633). He was a prominent man of his day in England: a member of Parliament, Secretary of the Admiralty, president of the Royal Society, and friend of such notables as Sir Christopher Wren and Sir Isaac Newton.

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