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The Writer’s Almanac for Saturday, December 21, 2024

Posted on December 21, 2024 - Writer's Almanac

On this day in 1620, the Pilgrims arrived at Plymouth Rock on the shores of Massachusetts. The Mayflower carried enough furniture for 19 cottages, as well as pigs, goats, guns, journals and Bibles. Native American tribes had already skirmished with the Pilgrims as they explored the banks of Cape Cod. William Bradford, who became the governor of Plymouth Plantation, wrote that they reached the new continent and found nothing but “a hideous and desolate wilderness, full of wild beasts and wild men.”

The Writer’s Almanac for Friday, December 20, 2024

Posted on December 20, 2024 - Writer's Almanac

It’s the birthday of the Irish revolutionary Maud Gonne, the lifelong muse of poet W.B. Yeats, born in Surrey, England (1865). She and Yeats first met when they were both 25 years old. He fell in love with her immediately and remained in love for the rest of his life.

The Writer’s Almanac for Thursday, December 19, 2024

Posted on December 19, 2024 - Writer's Almanac

It was on this day in 1843 that Charles Dickens published A Christmas Carol. A year earlier, he had read a disturbing news story about child labor in England, and so he had visited Cornwall to see for himself the horrible conditions of child workers in the mines there. Then he visited free schools for poor children. By the time he was through, he was so angry that he decided to write a book exposing the terrible situation of children in poverty, and publish it at his own expense. That was A Christmas Carol in Prose, now called just A Christmas Carol.

The Writer’s Almanac for Wednesday, December 18, 2024

Posted on December 18, 2024 - Writer's Almanac

It’s the birthday of hymn writer and Methodist Charles Wesley, born in Epworth, England (1707). He went to Oxford, where he was more interested in socializing than in Scripture — he wrote later: “My first year at College I lost in diversions.” His older, more serious brother, John, wrote about Charles: “He pursued his studies diligently, and led a regular, harmless life; but if I spoke to him about religion, he would warmly answer, ‘What, would you have me be a saint all at once?’ and would hear no more.”

The Writer’s Almanac for Tuesday, December 17, 2024

Posted on December 17, 2024 - Writer's Almanac

Poet John Greenleaf Whittier was born on this day near Haverhill, Massachusetts (1807). Whittier was raised on a debt-ridden farm, attended school only 12 weeks a year, and had to walk several miles to borrow books on biography or travel since his house contained only a single almanac.

The Writer’s Almanac for Monday, December 16, 2024

Posted on December 16, 2024 - Writer's Almanac

Today is the birthday of science fiction author Arthur C[harles] Clarke (1917) born in Minehead, Somerset, England. He was known as one of the “Big Three” of sci-fi, along with Robert A. Heinlein and Isaac Asimov. His best-known work is 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968).

The Writer’s Almanac for Sunday, December 15, 2024

Posted on December 15, 2024 - Writer's Almanac

It’s the birthday of physicist and writer Freeman Dyson, born in Crawthorne Village, England (1923). While he was in his 20s, he made a huge contribution to science: He solved the central problem of quantum electrodynamics, a theory that describes how light and matter interact.

The Writer’s Almanac for Saturday, December 14, 2024

Posted on December 14, 2024 - Writer's Almanac

It’s the birthday of Amy Hempel, born in Chicago, Illinois (1951). She always knew she wanted to be a writer, but she didn’t have anything to write about, so she moved to California and worked in a series of odd jobs. She took an anatomy class where she performed autopsies on corpses, and then she worked in a counseling group for terminally ill people. But after her best friend died of cancer, she moved to New York City. It was only after she’d left California that she could write about the life she had been living there.

The Writer’s Almanac for Friday, December 13, 2024

Posted on December 13, 2024 - Writer's Almanac

It’s the birthday of mystery novelist Ross Macdonald, born Kenneth Millar in Los Gatos, California (1915). He also published under the names John Macdonald and John Ross Macdonald. He is most known for a series of novels starring Lew Archer, a private investigator. Macdonald named his character after Sam Spade’s dead partner in Dashiell Hammett’s The Maltese Falcon (1930).

The Writer’s Almanac for Thursday, December 12, 2024

Posted on December 12, 2024 - Writer's Almanac

It’s the birthday of painter and printmaker Edvard Munch, born in Løten, Norway (1863). He was a sickly child; his mother and favorite sister both died of tuberculosis when Munch was a boy, and he was still a young man when his father and brother died as well. Another sister went mad. “I inherited two of mankind’s most frightful enemies — the heritage of consumption and insanity — illness and madness and death were the black angels that stood at my cradle,” he wrote in his journal.

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