The Writer's Almanac with Garrison Keillor

It's the birthday of Anton Chekhov (books by this author), born in Taganrog, Russia (1860). He was in medical school and took up writing as a way to support his family. He wrote sketches and stories, never spending more than a day on any story. Two years after he graduated, Chekhov got a letter from the critic Dmitry Grigorovich, telling him that he was the most gifted writer of his generation and should take his work more seriously. Chekhov responded: "Your letter struck me like lightning. I became very emotional upon opening it. I nearly cried. I understand now that if I have a gift, I should honor it, which I have not always done in the past."

The next year he published a collection of short stories, At Dusk (1887), and it won the Pushkin Prize, a huge literary award in Russia. That same year, he wrote his first play. As he earned more from his writing, he didn't give up his medical practice — instead, he treated more and more poor patients free of charge.

He said, "Any idiot can face a crisis — it's day to day living that wears you out."

It was on this day in 1845 that Edgar Allan Poe's poem "The Raven" was published in the New York Evening Mirror (books by this author). It was a huge sensation: Abraham Lincoln memorized it, and Elizabeth Barrett Browning wrote a fan letter to Poe. He was paid $9 for "The Raven," and it was extensively reprinted without his permission, but there was nothing he could do about it. He had written an unsigned article for the Mirror before about copyright law, saying, "Without an international copyright law, American authors may as well cut their throats," but there was no such law until 1891. His income in 1844 was $424; in 1845, he made $549.

It's the birthday of writer and politician Thomas Paine (books by this author), born in Thetford, England (1737). He moved to Philadelphia in 1774. He was 37, an unsuccessful writer, and he became wildly successful in the colonies with his long essay Common Sense, in which he said, "The cause of America is in great measure the cause of all mankind." The pamphlet sold more than 100,000 copies by the end of 1775, and the American Revolution began the next year.

It's the birthday of novelist and essayist Edward Abbey (books by this author), born in Indiana, Pennsylvania (1927). In 1944, he decided to hitch-hike cross-country, knowing that he might be drafted when he turned 18, and he fell in love with the West. He did get drafted, and spent a couple of years in Italy, then went to the University of New Mexico on the GI Bill. He worked as a seasonal ranger in national parks, and he published his first few novels including The Brave Cowboy (1956) which was made into a movie starring Kirk Douglas and Fire on the Mountain (1968).

Abbey was working as a school bus driver in Death Valley when he decided to write down an account of his time as a park ranger at Arches National Monument near Moab, Utah. It was published as Desert Solitaire (1968). Then in 1975, he published The Monkey Wrench Gang, the story of four irreverent, beer-drinking, gun-wielding, fun-loving characters who will do anything it takes to stop developers from coming in and destroying the West. The Monkey Wrench Gang was a best-seller, and its popularity made Desert Solitaire a best-seller, as well. Edward Abbey became famous as an environmentalist.