Help

General questions

What is the piano music that accompanies The Writer's Almanac?

The music that begins and ends The Writer's Almanac is a Scandinavian folk tune called "Ge Mig En Dag" ("Give Me a Day"). The pianist is Rich Dworsky, music director for A Prairie Home Companion. A recorded version is available with the Good Poems audio book.

Sheet music is available in the book Once Led to Your Font: A Keyboard Collection, by Mark Sedio.

Why did you change the Web site?

We've always had a wealth of poetry posted to the site, and it was our intention to make it easier for our audience to find the poems more easily. We also thought we could stand to spruce the site up a bit.

Subscription information

How do I subscribe to the podcast?

Go to the Podcast page, copy the URL selected and put it into your podcasting application. A thorough explanation of what is a podcast is available at Wikipedia.

How do I subscribe to the daily newsletter?

Fill out the form on the Newsletter page. You should start receiving daily emails within a week.

Help finding poetry

How can I find a poem I heard on the The Writer's Almanac?

If you know the name of the author, browse or search for him or her on the author page. If the title of the poem is known, browsing or searching by poem title may be most useful. If you know approximately when the piece aired, the improved archive page might do the trick.

If you're still having difficulty, the most thorough search is located on each page in the upper right hand corner. It also exists as a page here.

Why are there only poem titles and authors from 1993 and 1994?

These entries are from the time before our Web site was created. We had the information, and we hope to add to the back catalog as soon as possible.

Why aren't there links to listen for programs up to Feb. 5, 2001?

The Web site didn't have audio until this point. As above, we plan to add to the back catalog as time permits.

Why are the listen links different before January 22, 2007?

Oddly enough, it was a configuration change on our Web site. We used to post an entire week's worth of audio, and modify the file with "timestamps" for each day. Those timestamps were inconsistent, and as such, did not lend themselves to the type of automation we can use now with one day having its own audio file.

Audio help

Audio is posted in the RealAudio format. To listen, you need to install the free Real Audio player.

Further audio help is available at http://americanpublicmedia.org/audio_help/.

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