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The Writer’s Almanac for Wednesday, January 15, 2025

Posted on January 15, 2025 - Writer's Almanac

The French playwright, actor, and manager Molière was baptized in Paris on this date in 1622. He was born Jean-Baptiste Poquelin to a wealthy family; his father was upholsterer to the king. His father wanted him to become a lawyer, but instead Poquelin took up with a theatrical family, the Béjarts, when he was 21. They formed a troupe and put on comedies, and he adopted the stage name of Molière.

The Writer’s Almanac for Tuesday, January 14, 2025

Posted on January 14, 2025 - Writer's Almanac

It’s the birthday of Albert Schweitzer, born in Kaysersberg, in the province of Alsace-Lorraine (1875). He was a theologian, a musical prodigy, an author, and a philosopher, an expert on Bach, Goethe, and Kant. When he was 21, he made a plan: for the next nine years, he would devote himself to science, art, and religion. But once he turned 30, he would spend the rest of his life serving humanity. And so, on his 30th birthday, he decided to become a medical missionary to Africa.

The Writer’s Almanac for Monday, January 13, 2025

Posted on January 13, 2025 - Writer's Almanac

It’s the birthday of Lorrie Moore (1957), born Marie Lorena Moore in Glens Falls, New York. She said of her childhood: “There was acting, and dressing up. We’d play music, and write crappy songs. We’d draw and paint, and fancy ourselves as artistic. It was part of being a girl in the ’60s that you were creative.” She won a short-story prize from Seventeen magazine when she was 19 years old, which prompted her to send them everything she’d ever written.

The Writer’s Almanac for Sunday, January 12, 2025

Posted on January 12, 2025 - Writer's Almanac

It’s the birthday of the novelist Jack London, born in San Francisco (1876). He is best known as the author of over fifty books, including The Call of the Wild (1903) and White Fang (1906). His best known short story is “To Build a Fire.” London was mostly self-educated. He worked on a sealing schooner off the coast of Japan in 1893, and when he returned to America there were no jobs and he became a vagrant. In his memoir The Road (1907), London wrote about those days, including the tricks he used to evade train crews when he stowed away, and how he convinced strangers to buy meals for him.

The Writer’s Almanac for Saturday, January 11, 2025

Posted on January 11, 2025 - Writer's Almanac

It’s the birthday of the botanist William Curtis, born in Alton, England (1746). A scientist, he directed the Apothecaries’ Garden, the world’s leading botanic garden, at a time when amateur gardening was booming and exotic plants were available through catalogs. He became an expert authority on how Londoners could grow plants from all over the world.

The Writer’s Almanac for Friday, January 10, 2025

Posted on January 10, 2025 - Writer's Almanac

It was on this day in 1901 that the first oil gusher in the United States erupted at Spindletop, just outside Beaumont, Texas. It was considered the beginning of the oil age or petroleum age. In 1901, all of America’s oil came from the East, mostly from Pennsylvania, and the experts were sure that Pennsylvania was the future of the nation’s oil. The president of Standard Oil, John Archbold, was amused when someone told him in 1885 that they had discovered oil in Oklahoma — he said, “I’ll drink every gallon of oil produced west of the Mississippi!”

The Writer’s Almanac for Thursday, January 9, 2025

Posted on January 9, 2025 - Writer's Almanac

It was on this day in 2001 that Apple Computer introduced iTunes. Since that day, more than 10 billion tracks have been downloaded from the iTunes store. Six years later, on this day in 2007, Apple unveiled the iPhone. Afterward, they made available a software development kit, the set of tools enabling a person to create a third-party application, or iPhone “app.”

The Writer’s Almanac for Wednesday, January 8, 2025

Posted on January 8, 2025 - Writer's Almanac

Today is the birthday of the King of Rock and Roll, Elvis Presley, born in Tupelo, Mississippi (1935). His first stage performance came in 1945, when he was 10 years old. He sang “Old Shep” at a talent contest, and came in fifth, winning five dollars’ worth of ride tickets for the Mississippi-Alabama fair. The following year, he wanted a bicycle, but his parents were too poor to buy one. His mother, Gladys, talked him into accepting a substitute gift: a guitar, which cost $12.95 at the Tupelo Hardware Company.

The Writer’s Almanac for Tuesday, January 7, 2025

Posted on January 7, 2025 - Writer's Almanac

It’s the birthday of the man most responsible for reviving Hebrew as a spoken language, Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, born in Luzhki, part of the Russian Empire (1858). He wanted to make sure that Jewish people from around the world could communicate with each other.

The Writer’s Almanac for Monday, January 6, 2025

Posted on January 6, 2025 - Writer's Almanac

It’s the birthday of National Book Award-winning novelist E.L. Doctorow, born in New York City (1931). He said that his parents named him after Edgar Allan Poe, because his dad was a big fan. As an adult, he once confronted his mom: “Do you realize that you and Dad named me after a paranoid, drug-addicted alcoholic with necrophiliac tendencies?” His aging mother replied, “Edgar, that’s not funny.”

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