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The Writer’s Almanac for Wednesday, June 12, 2024

Posted on June 12, 2024 - Writer's Almanac

It’s the birthday of Anne Frank, born in Frankfurt, Germany (1929). She received a diary as a birthday present on her 13th birthday in 1942, and she immediately began writing in it. A few weeks after her birthday, Anne’s older sister, Margot, got a notice to report to a Jewish work camp, so the Franks went into hiding in an annex in Amsterdam, along with four other people. They lived together in the annex for two years, and a family friend, Miep Gies, brought them food and supplies.

The Writer’s Almanac for Tuesday, June 11, 2024

Posted on June 11, 2024 - Writer's Almanac

Today is the birthday of the novelist William Styron, born in Newport News, Virginia, in 1925. As a teenager, he enlisted in the Marines to fight in World War II, but by the time he’d finished training and set sail for Japan, the war had ended. He moved to Brooklyn, New York, and got a job as an office boy at the McGraw-Hill publishing house. He was supposed to write book jacket copy, but he was so disgusted with most of the books that he filled all his summaries with insults and foul language. After throwing several paper airplanes and water balloons out the window of his office, he got fired. So he decided to try to make it as a writer.

The Writer’s Almanac for Monday, June 10, 2024

Posted on June 10, 2024 - Writer's Almanac

It’s the birthday of novelist and short-story writer James Salter, born James Horowitz, in New York City (1925). He attended West Point and became a pilot in the Air Force. He flew one hundred combat missions during the Korean War, and served as a squadron leader in Europe before retiring in 1957 to become a writer.

The Writer’s Almanac for Sunday, June 9, 2024

Posted on June 9, 2024 - Writer's Almanac

It’s the birthday of Cole Porter, born in Peru, Indiana (1891). He was a composer and lyricist, and he wrote a string of hit songs: “I Get a Kick Out of You,” “Night and Day,” “You’re the Top,” “Let’s Do It, Let’s Fall In Love,” “I’ve got You Under My Skin,” and “Let’s Misbehave.” All of these songs were written within a 10-year period: between his first popular Broadway musical, Paris (1928) — his first musicals had been complete flops — and a terrible riding accident in 1937.

The Writer’s Almanac for Saturday, June 8, 2024

Posted on June 8, 2024 - Writer's Almanac

Mark Twain took a famous ride on this day in 1867. He boarded the side-wheel steamer “The Quaker City” and set off on a five-month trip to Europe and the Mediterranean. This had never been done before — a transatlantic pleasure cruise on a steamship — and when Twain heard about the idea, he asked the San Francisco newspaper the Alta-California if they wanted to send him as their correspondent.

The Writer’s Almanac for Friday, June 7, 2024

Posted on June 7, 2024 - Writer's Almanac

It’s the birthday of the novelist Louise Erdrich, born in Little Falls, Minnesota (1954). She grew up in Wahpeton, North Dakota, the eldest of seven children. Her father came from a family of German immigrants, and her mother was French Ojibwe, and both her parents taught in the school run by the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

The Writer’s Almanac for Thursday, June 6, 2024

Posted on June 6, 2024 - Writer's Almanac

It’s the birthday of poet Maxine Kumin, born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (1925). She grew up in an affluent family — her father owned the largest pawnbroking business in the city. Even though she was Jewish, her parents sent her to a Catholic school because it was so close to her house. She said, “Jesus entered my life casually but insistently and some of that sanctified passion has stayed in my bones.”

The Writer’s Almanac for Wednesday, June 5, 2024

Posted on June 5, 2024 - Writer's Almanac

It’s the birthday of one of the great men of letters of the 20th century, Alfred Kazin, born in Brooklyn (1915). He grew up in the Brownsville section, the poor Jewish immigrant sector of Brooklyn. He said, “We were the children of the immigrants who had camped at the city’s back door … a place that measured all success by our skill in getting away from it.”

The Writer’s Almanac for Tuesday, June 4, 2024

Posted on June 4, 2024 - Writer's Almanac

On this date in 1896, a young electrical engineer named Henry Ford completed, and successfully tested, his first experimental automobile. He called it the “Quadricycle” because it rolled around on four bicycle tires. He worked on it for two years, out in the shed behind his house on Bagley Avenue in Detroit. It was finally ready to test when he hit an unexpected snag: It was too wide to fit through the workshop’s door. Ford took an ax to the doorframe, and he was soon rolling down Grand River Avenue.

The Writer’s Almanac for Monday, June 3, 2024

Posted on June 3, 2024 - Writer's Almanac

It’s the birthday of poet Allen Ginsberg, born in Newark, New Jersey (1926). He was raised by a family of Russian-Jewish immigrants; his father was a high school teacher and a poet, and his mother struggled with mental illness her entire life. At Columbia University, he fell in with a group of poets and artists that included Jack Kerouac, Neal Cassady, and William S. Burroughs. They read poetry to each other and took drugs and had all-night conversations, and sometime in the late ’40s, they started calling themselves “Beats.”

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