Writing that changed things @storyofwriting - Tumblr Blog

The Story of Writing podcast:

-Talk about writers and writing that changed things for the better

-Representation matters - across the whole rainbow

-Feminism is equality for all

-Stay woke

-Encourage reading

-Respect short attention spans

-Find joy and share it

#writing #writers and poets #writer stuff #writeblr #books #otd #botd

Gertrude Chandler Warner & MLK's Letter from Birmingham Jail

On her birthday, a look back at the writing of Gertrude Chandler Warner and a reading from the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr's Letter from Birmingham Jail - written on this day.

#writers and poets #history #poetry #writing

Samuel Johnson's "Dictionary of the English Language" & SNCC

On this day in 1755, one of the most important works in the English language was published and we hear the founding statement of SNCC, the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, which was formed on this day.

#writers and poets #poetry #history #writing #non violence

Harriet Arey and Ben Franklin

A look back at an important figure in women’s literary activism in the late 1800s: Harriett Ellen Grannis Arey. And we'll hear a reading from a letter written by founding father Benjamin Franklin, who was a co-founder of the first group in the American colonies to call for abolishing slavery.

#writers and poets #history #writing #botd #women's rights #equality #abolition

Polio vaccine & Tama Janowitz

On this day, Dr. Jonas Salk's poiio vaccine was announced "safe and effective" and it is the birthday of writer Tama Janowitz.

#medicine #vaccine #polio #writers and poets

Ellen Goodman & Hattie Gossett

On their birthdays, a look at the writings of columnist Ellen Goodman and poet, playwrights, and essayist Hattie Gossett.

#writers and poets

Joseph Pulitzer

It is the birthday of the newspaper publisher who said, “Every reporter is a hope, and every editor is a disappointment.” Joseph Pulitzer was born on this day in 1847. He fled the poverty of Hungary by signing up to serve in the U.S. Union Army during the Civil War.

His struggles as an immigrant eased after he joined a group of people in St. Louis, Missouri who saw something in him and in his writing.

He got involved in politics and bought the bankrupt St. Louis Dispatch. The newspaper’s reporting already had a reputation for the sensationalism that came to be called yellow journalism. Competing with other newspapers, Pulitzer pushed his editors and writers to go further. Stories had to be dire to the point of melodrama. Innuendo and fabrication became acceptable, then desirable. Pulitzer took this style to the New York World, the newspaper he bought and turned into a juggernaut of yellow journalism and profitability. When he died in 1911, his net worth was nearly one-tenth of one percent of the entire U.S. Gross National Product.

Pulitzer left millions of dollars to Columbia University to create a graduate-level journalism school that taught and recognized professional reporting, not sensationalism.

Joseph Pulitzer, circa 1900

#joseph pulitzer #yellow journalism #immigrants #writing #history #BOTD

Joseph Pulitzer

This is the anniversary of the birth of Joseph Pulitzer: the newspaper publisher whose true story was every bit as sensational as the yellow journalism he embraced.

#news #journalism #joseph pulitzer

Paris Spleen

Baudelaire

“Genius is nothing more nor less than childhood recaptured at will.” French writer Charles Baudelaire was born on this day in 1821. He admired the work of Edgar Allan Poe and Baudelaire’s early writing included translating Poe’s stories into French. Some of Poe’s macabre themes appear in Baudelaire’s later writing, like his best-known work, Les fleur de mal or Flowers of Evil. But Baudelaire’s work also gave readers eroticism, decadence, and moral depravity, which led to the censorship of some of his writing. He saw – and captured – the changes in Paris as it transitioned to an industrial city during his lifetime. And Baudelaire’s writing on loss, specifically loss of beauty, resonated with readers around the world – and it still does.

A colorized photo of Charles Baudelaire. Image credit: Apic/Getty Images. Source: The Guardian

Here's how The Guardian described him: Drug-addicted, syphilitic, always in debt despite inheriting a fortune, writing about prostitutes, hanging out in Paris’s demi-monde, forced by judges to suppress some of his poems – Baudelaire set the bar high for future artists of all types keen to be “maudit” (cursed) outsiders, too.

#charles baudelaire #poet #paris

On this day in 1865, Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered to Union General Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Courthouse in Virginia. In the U.S., this is one of the most storied days of the 19th Century. Lee’s surrender effectively ended the Civil War, though other battles and surrenders took place over the next few months.

The brief meeting between Grant and Lee produced two important pieces of writing, though, according to historians with the National Park Service, there is no formal surrender document. They said, “The surrender was conducted through an exchange of two short letters. Grant’s was a mere five sentences long and Lee’s reply was only three short, terse sentences.” These two letters became the model for all the surrendering Confederate armies, and the terms of parole for their soldiers.

An artist rendering of the surrender of Confederate General Robert E. Lee to Union General Ulysses S. Grant in the front parlor of the McLean house at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865. Image credit and source: U.S. Library of Congress | photo by Associated Press

#civil war #surrender #Appomattox #history #OTD

Gen. Robert E. Lee & Charles Baudelaire

Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrenders at Appomattox Courthouse and it's the birthday of poet Charles Beaudelaire.

#civil war #robert e lee #ulysses s. grant #surrender #charles baudelaire #writers and poets #poetry

Grace Hopper, COBOL, & Barbara Kingsolver

A meeting on computer coding more than 65 years ago became a story about Grace Hopper, a woman who changed computer programming for everyone and we hear a reading from The Poisonwood Bible written by Barbara Kingsolver, who was born on this day.

#writing #coding #programming #cobol #barbara kingsolver #the poisonwood bible