Friday

Oct. 11, 1996

Song

by W. H. Auden

FRIDAY 10/11

Today's Reading:"Song" by W. H. Auden from COLLECTED POEMS, published by Carcanet Press.

The King Biscuit Blues Festival starts today in Helena, Arkansas.

The Harvest Jubilee begins in Danville, Virginia, today.

It's the first day of the Fire-Ant Festival in Marshall, Texas.

The Gumbo Festival starts today in Bridge City, Louisiana.

It's the Polkafest in Manden, North Dakota, today and tomorrow.

On this day in 1936, the first radio quiz show with cash prizes went on the air - PROFESSOR QUIZ AND HIS BRAINBUSTERS.

In 1919 the first attempt was made on a commercial airliner to serve a meal in flight.

Choreographer Jerome Robbins, was born in New York City in 1918.

Nobel laureate Francois Mauriac was born on this day in Bordeaux, France (1885).

It's the birthday of (Anna) Eleanor Roosevelt, born in New York City (1884).

Lewis Fry Richardson, the first scientist to predict weather mathematically, was born in Northumberland, England, in 1881.

Henry John Heinz, known as "the Pickle King," was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in 1844.

It was on this day in 1835 that Thomas Carlye's maid accidentally burned his 260-page manuscript of THE FRENCH REVOLUTION.

Be well, do good work, and keep in touch.®

 

«

»

  • “Writers end up writing stories—or rather, stories' shadows—and they're grateful if they can, but it is not enough. Nothing the writer can do is ever enough” —Joy Williams
  • “I want to live other lives. I've never quite believed that one chance is all I get. Writing is my way of making other chances.” —Anne Tyler
  • “Writing is a performance, like singing an aria or dancing a jig” —Stephen Greenblatt
  • “All good writing is swimming under water and holding your breath.” —F. Scott Fitzgerald
  • “Good writing is always about things that are important to you, things that are scary to you, things that eat you up.” —John Edgar Wideman
  • “In certain ways writing is a form of prayer.” —Denise Levertov
  • “Writing is a socially acceptable form of schizophrenia.” —E.L. Doctorow
  • “Writing is like driving at night in the fog. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.” —E.L. Doctorow
  • “Let's face it, writing is hell.” —William Styron
  • “A writer is someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.” —Thomas Mann
  • “Writing is 90 percent procrastination: reading magazines, eating cereal out of the box, watching infomercials.” —Paul Rudnick
  • “Writing is a failure. Writing is not only useless, it's spoiled paper.” —Padget Powell
  • “Writing is very hard work and knowing what you're doing the whole time.” —Shelby Foote
  • “I think all writing is a disease. You can't stop it.” —William Carlos Williams
  • “Writing is like getting married. One should never commit oneself until one is amazed at one's luck.” —Iris Murdoch
  • “The less conscious one is of being ‘a writer,’ the better the writing.” —Pico Iyer
  • “Writing is…that oddest of anomalies: an intimate letter to a stranger.” —Pico Iyer
  • “Writing is my dharma.” —Raja Rao
  • “Writing is a combination of intangible creative fantasy and appallingly hard work.” —Anthony Powell
  • “I think writing is, by definition, an optimistic act.” —Michael Cunningham
Current Faves - Learn more about poets featured frequently on the show