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The Writer’s Almanac for Wednesday, May 17, 2023

Posted on May 17, 2023 - Writer's Almanac

On this date the Supreme Court ruled that school segregation violated the Fourteenth Amendment on this date in 1954.

The Writer’s Almanac for Tuesday, May 16, 2023

Posted on May 16, 2023 - Writer's Almanac

It’s the birthday of writer, historian, and radio man Studs Terkel, born in New York City (1912). When he was eight, his family moved to Chicago, where they ran a rooming house, and Terkel was fascinated by all the different people who came through. The Studs Terkel Program debuted in 1952 and aired for 45 years, until 1997.

The Writer’s Almanac for Monday, May 15, 2023

Posted on May 15, 2023 - Writer's Almanac

It’s the birthday of Pulitzer Prize-winning author Katherine Anne Porter, born Callie Russell Porter in Indian Creek, Texas (1890). She was brought up by her beloved grandmother, Catherine Anne, whose name she later took. Porter won the Pulitzer Prize (1966) for The Collected Stories of Katherine Anne Porter.

The Writer’s Almanac for Sunday, May 14, 2023

Posted on May 14, 2023 - Writer's Almanac

Today is Mother’s Day, first celebrated in 1908, when Anna Jarvis held a memorial for her own mother at a church in Grafton, West Virginia. Jarvis’s mother had been a peace activist who cared for wounded soldiers on both sides of the Civil War.

The Writer’s Almanac for Saturday, May 13, 2023

Posted on May 13, 2023 - Writer's Almanac

Today is the birthday of singer and songwriter Richard Steven Valenzuela (1941), born in Pacoima, a neighborhood in the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles. He’s better known as “Ritchie Valens,” and you’ve probably danced along to two of his biggest hits, “La Bamba” and “Donna.”

The Writer’s Almanac for Friday, May 12, 2023

Posted on May 12, 2023 - Writer's Almanac

It’s the birthday of American novelist and poet Rosellen Brown, born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1939. Her novels include Tender Mercies (1978), Before and After (1992), and Half a Heart (2000), which tells the story of a white, Jewish woman who is reunited with the biracial daughter she abandoned during the sixties

The Writer’s Almanac for Thursday, May 11, 2023

Posted on May 11, 2023 - Writer's Almanac

Today is the birthday of American modern dance pioneer Martha Graham (1894), who once said: “No artist is ahead of his time. He is his time; it is just that others are behind the time.”

The Writer’s Almanac for Wednesday, May 10, 2023

Posted on May 10, 2023 - Writer's Almanac

It’s the birthday of country and folk musician Mother Maybelle Carter, born Maybelle Addington in a tiny hamlet near Nickelsville in western Virginia. (1909). She revolutionized guitar playing with her unusual style of playing melody on the bass strings: she used her thumb while strumming with her fingers.

The Writer’s Almanac for Tuesday, May 9, 2023

Posted on May 9, 2023 - Writer's Almanac

It’s the birthday of Billy Joel, born in the Bronx (1949). Soon after he was born, his family moved to Long Island’s Levittown, the first suburb in America. “I never wanted to be an oldies act, but I suppose I am,” he said,

The Writer’s Almanac for Monday, May 8, 2023

Posted on May 8, 2023 - Writer's Almanac

Today is believed to be the birthday of poet Phillis Wheatley, born in West Africa, most likely in Senegal or Gambia (1753). She was kidnapped and put on a slave ship, the Phillis, when she was eight years old.

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