Sep 01 2022
“And so, in silence, we walked the surface of a dying world, but in the breast of one of us at least had been born that which is ever oldest, yet ever new. I loved Dejah Thoris. The touch of my arm upon her naked shoulder had spoken to me in words I would not …
Aug 17 2022
Illustrator and author Ian Beck was born on this day August 17, 1947 in Brighton, England. “Few sounds were to be heard at that early hour, only the drone of the airship’s engines and the mournful mournful moans of the foghorns, which seemed almost to be searching for one another, somewhere along the silvered and …
Aug 01 2022
“It is not down on any map; true places never are.” -Herman Melville, Moby-Dick Happy birthday to Herman Melville, born on this day August 1, 1819 in New York City. Widely acclaimed for his 1851 novel Moby-Dick, a.k.a. The Whale, Melville is a literary icon. He is also well known for his novella Billy Budd and his …
Jul 17 2022
Nobel Prize laureate Shmuel Yosef Agnon was a novelist, short story writer, and poet born on this day July 17, 1888 in Buczacz, Austria-Hungary. “He longed for it to be winter. A cold wind would blow, the sea would pound, and he would rise cheerful and fit from a delicious sleep beneath warm blankets. Then would …
Jul 07 2022
I fell in love with Cuba, or at least the idea of Hemingway’s Cuba, in my mid teens. I read an article about the writer and delighted in the romance of a bygone age, salsa and adventure preserved in time. Maybe the idea of vintage cars made the historic more tangible. I determined that one …
Jun 25 2022
Happy birthday Eric Carle, born on this day June 25, 1929, in Syracuse, NY 🐛 “We have eyes, and we’re looking at stuff all the time, all day long. And I just think that whatever our eyes touch should be beautiful, tasteful, appealing, and important.” -Eric Carle
Jun 22 2022
This World Rainforest Day I am celebrating novelist, poet, environmentalist, diplomat, and mother of five, Astrid Cabral, who sings the songs of her Amazon home in her exemplary poetry. Some of Cabral’s most well-known books include Through Water (2003), Anteroom (2007), and Cage (2008). In Cage, Cabral explores the real and symbolic animals of the Amazon. She …
Mar 11 2022
Famous for his books The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (1979), as well as Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency (1987) and The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul (1988), writer Douglas Adams was born on this day March 11, 1952 in Cambridge, England. “I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended …
Feb 27 2022
American author John Steinbeck was born on this day February 27, 1902 in Salinas, California. He won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1940 and the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1962. His most well known works are his novels Tortilla Flat (1935), Of Mice and Men (1937), The Grapes of Wrath (1939), Cannery Row …
Feb 11 2022
Elsa Beskow has written and illustrated over 40 published children’s books, and is a beloved storyteller in her home country of Sweden, where she was born on February 11, 1874. Having entertained scores of children as well as adults for over a hundred years, Beskow is also known as the ‘Beatrix Potter’ of Scandinavia. Elsa …