Susan’s Almanac Project for September 17, 2020

By |2020-09-17T18:18:16+00:00September 17th, 2020|

This is a re-post from two years ago. Today is the birthday of William Carols Williams (1883-1963), one of those people who thought he could be both a successful doctor and a brilliant poet and writer, and who turned out to be right. Among his accomplishments were becoming chief of pediatrics at a general hospital [...]

Susan’s Almanac Project for May 9, 2020

By |2020-05-09T16:29:36+00:00May 9th, 2020|

It’s the birthday of Charles Simic (b. 1938), one of today’s Great Living Poets of surrealist ilk (though he does grim realism as well), whose poetry “removes the safety nets from the everyday.” Simic was born in Belgrade, Yugoslavia (now Serbia) and spent his childhood fleeing the violence of WWII; he has said that “My [...]

Susan’s Almanac Project for May 2, 2020

By |2020-05-02T12:57:02+00:00May 2nd, 2020|

It’s the birthday of Peggy Bacon (1895-1987, #nicelonglife), who was the author and/or illustrator of 60-some books and won great recognition for both her art and her writing, including an Edgar Allen Poe Mystery Award nomination for her novel The Inward Eye (1952). Margaret Frances Bacon was born in Ridgefield, Connecticut, to two artists; her [...]

Susan’s Almanac Project for April 9, 2020

By |2020-04-09T16:36:40+00:00April 9th, 2020|

This is a re-post from last year because this guy is inspiring! It’s the birthday of Jacques Futrelle (1875-1912, #diedtooyoung), lauded for his ingenious mysteries and best known for the oft-anthologized story “The Problem of Cell 13.” Futrelle’s career was unfortunately cut short when he went down with the Titanic, which he did bravely and [...]

Susan’s Almanac Project for April 2, 2020

By |2020-04-02T13:09:15+00:00April 2nd, 2020|

A slightly rewritten re-post from two years ago. It’s the birthday of Danish author Hans Christian Andersen (b. 1805), who wrote plays, poems, novels, autobiographies, and more, but is most famous for his literary fairy tales, which have been translated into more than 150 languages. (Be honest: can you even *name* 150 languages?) Some of [...]

Susan’s Almanac Project for March 21, 2020

By |2020-03-21T13:09:22+00:00March 21st, 2020|

Maybe one of my favorite posts, so I am re-posting. Stay well. It’s the birthday of Jean-Baptiste-Joseph Fourier (1768-1830), brilliant mathematician but also—because how else are you going to spend your time when you’re not developing an eponymous infinite mathematical series—a brilliant Egyptologist responsible for the publication of the 10-volume Description de l’Égypte, one of [...]

Susan’s Almanac Project for March 18, 2020

By |2020-03-18T15:10:27+00:00March 18th, 2020|

Susan’s Almanac Project for March 18, 2020 Hello, everyone! Are you all okay out there and practicing social distancing? Stay well; we can do this! I'm hoping to do more original posts very soon, but this is a re-post from last year on one of the U.S.'s most prominent authors ever. If you're an Updike [...]

Susan’s Almanac Project for March 9, 2020

By |2020-03-09T17:20:29+00:00March 9th, 2020|

It’s the birthday of Frank Morrison Spillane, better known as Mickey Spillane, writer of the Mike Hammer detective series and mid-life convert to (I am not making this up) the Jehovah’s Witnesses. Spillane was born in 1918 in Brooklyn, New York, and after high school worked at various jobs: lifeguarding, performing with a circus, and [...]

Susan’s Almanac Project for February 28, 2020

By |2020-02-28T14:45:38+00:00February 28th, 2020|

It’s the birthday of internationally acclaimed writer Colum McCann (b. 1965), author of three story collections and six novels, including the international bestsellers Let the Great World Spin (2009) and Transatlantic (2013). McCann was born and raised in Ireland, where he started out as a journalist in The Irish Press. He moved to the U.S. [...]

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