Thursday

Jun. 11, 1998

The Trestle

by Raymond Carver

THURSDAY 6/11

Today's Reading: "The Trestle" by Raymond Carver from WHERE WATER COMES TOGETHER WITH OTHER WATER, published by Random House.

It's KAMEHAMEHADAY TODAY in Hawaii, honoring the King who in the 1790s brought all the islands under one rule.

It's the birthday in Newport News, Virginia, 1925, of WILLIAM STYRON, author of Sophie's Choice (1979), The Confessions of Nat Turner (1967) that won him the Pulitzer Prize for fiction, and other books. He grew up in a coastal village outside of Newport News, a place he fictionalized in his most recent book, A Tidewater Morning. Styron went on to serve in the Marines in both WWII and the Korean War, and started his career as a novelist with Lie Down in Darkness, which came out in 1951.

It's BEN JONSON's birthday, the poet and playwright whom the British hold second only to Shakespeare, born 1572 (eight years after Shakespeare) in London. He was trained as an actor and when he was 26 years old killed a fellow actor in a duel. He was dragged before the court, but since he could read from the Latin Bible pled "benefit of clergy" that saved him from hanging. That same year his comedy Every Man in His Humor was a big hit in London.

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

 

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