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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.”

The Writer’s Almanac for Monday, January 8, 2024

Posted on January 8, 2024 - Writer's Almanac

It’s the birthday of British physicist Stephen Hawking, born in Oxford, England (1942), who pursues what physicists call a Grand Unified Theory, or a “Theory of Everything.” As Hawking puts it, “My goal is simple. It is complete understanding of the universe.” His most important work in physics has explored the nature of “singularities,” anomalies in the space-time continuum commonly known as “black holes.”

The Writer’s Almanac for Sunday, January 7, 2024

Posted on January 7, 2024 - Writer's Almanac

It’s the birthday of novelist, folklorist and anthropologist Zora Neale Hurston, born in Notasulga, Alabama (1891). She was working full time as a live-in maid when, in 1920, she enrolled in Howard University. Her first story, “Spunk,” was published in Opportunity magazine in 1925, when it won second prize in a fiction contest.

The Writer’s Almanac for Saturday, January 6, 2024

Posted on January 6, 2024 - Writer's Almanac

It’s the birthday of poet Khalil Gibran, born in a mountain village in Lebanon (1883). When Gibran was a boy, his mother decided to leave her alcoholic husband and take her four children to America. They settled in Boston, where they had relatives, and it was there that a charity worker noticed that Gibran appeared to be artistically gifted.

The Writer’s Almanac for Friday, January 5, 2024

Posted on January 5, 2024 - Writer's Almanac

It’s the birthday of the poet W. D. (William DeWitt) Snodgrass, born in Wilkinsburg, Pennsylvania (1926). He started writing poetry at a time when the poets T.S. Eliot and Ezra Pound had persuaded most poets writing in English that poetry should be full of imagery and symbols and allusions to mythology, but that it shouldn’t contain any obviously personal details.

The Writer’s Almanac for Thursday, January 4, 2024

Posted on January 4, 2024 - Writer's Almanac

It’s the birthday of the man who invented a system of reading and writing for the blind, Louis Braille, born in Coupvray, France (1809). He was blinded in his father’s harness shop when he was three years old. But even without his eyesight, he was the best student in his school, and went on to become a famous organist and cellist in Paris.

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