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The Writer’s Almanac for Tuesday, December 26, 2023

Posted on December 26, 2023 - Writer's Almanac

It is the birthday of humorist David Sedaris, born near Binghamton, New York (1956). Sedaris worked many odd jobs, including dishwasher, apple picker, and writing instructor. While living in Chicago, he made a living by painting apartments and squirrel-proofing houses. For most of his life, Sedaris had kept a diary in which he documented at least one incident from every day of his life.

The Writer’s Almanac for Monday, December 25, 2023

Posted on December 25, 2023 - Writer's Almanac

Today is Christmas Day. About 96 percent of Americans say that they celebrate Christmas in one way or another; but Christians didn’t start celebrating Christmas until the fourth century A.D. Apparently, the earliest Christians weren’t nearly as interested in Jesus’ birth as they were in his resurrection from the dead. Historians believe that the Gospel of Mark was the first Gospel to be written about Jesus, around 50 A.D., and it doesn’t even mention Jesus’ birth. It starts with his adult baptism.

The Writer’s Almanac for Sunday, December 24, 2023

Posted on December 24, 2023 - Writer's Almanac

On this day in 1943, General Dwight D. Eisenhower was named the Allied Supreme Commander of British and American forces. The appointment was announced during President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s fireside chat for Christmas Eve. In that same broadcast, FDR expressed confidence that the Allies would be victorious: “Last year I could not do more than express a hope. Today I express a certainty, though the cost may be high and the time may be long.”

The Writer’s Almanac for Saturday, December 23, 2023

Posted on December 23, 2023 - Writer's Almanac

It’s the birthday of Harriet Monroe, born in Chicago (1880). She was 32 years old when she decided to establish a magazine devoted entirely to poetry—and intended to pay poets for their work. In September, 1912, she came out with the first issue of Poetry: A Magazine of Verse. For the next twenty-four years Monroe raised money, awarded prizes, and published Poetry. In 1914 she published Carl Sandburg’s controversial “Chicago Poems” and in 1915 printed “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” by T.S. Eliot.

The Writer’s Almanac for Friday, December 22, 2023

Posted on December 22, 2023 - Writer's Almanac

It’s the birthday today of Thomas Higginson, born in Cambridge, Massachusetts (1823). He was an abolitionist and social reformer who had written several pieces for The Atlantic Monthly. But the reason we know him today is that, in the spring of 1862, he received a letter and four poems from Emily Dickinson. The letter read: “MR. HIGGINSON—Are you too deeply occupied to say if my verse is alive? The mind is so near itself it cannot see distinctly, and I have none to ask.”

The Writer’s Almanac for Thursday, December 21, 2023

Posted on December 21, 2023 - Writer's Almanac

It’s the birthday of novelist Heinrich Böll, born in Cologne, Germany (1917). He was drafted into the German army when he was 22, and suffered “the frightful fate of being a soldier and having to wish that the war might be lost.” His most popular book was The Clown (1963). In 1971, he won the Nobel Prize for what the Nobel committee called “his most grandly conceived work,” Group Portrait With Lady, a survey of German life over five decades.

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).

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