Colleen McCullough Biobite

Today’s Happy Birthday shout out goes to Colleen McCullough, born June 1, 1937.

Colleen Margaretta McCullough was an Australian author known for her novels, her most well-known being The Thorn Birds and The Ladies of Missalonghi.

McCullough was born in 1937 in Wellington, in the Central West region of New South Wales, to James and Laurie McCullough. Her father was of Irish descent and her mother was a New Zealander of part-Māori descent. During her childhood, the family moved around a great deal and she was also “a voracious reader”.

Her family eventually settled in Sydney where she attended Holy Cross College, Woollahra, having a strong interest in both science and the humanities.

To read more, go to Wikipedia.

To check out “Poems in the Key of Carlin,” or to see what else Curious Penman has to offer, check out our Browse Books page.

Douglas Stuart Biobite

Today’s Happy Birthday shout out goes to Douglas Stuart, born May 31, 1976.

Douglas Stuart is a Scottish-American writer and fashion designer. Born in Glasgow, Scotland, he studied at the Scottish College of Textiles and London’s Royal College of Art, before moving at the age of 24 to New York City, where he built a successful career in fashion design, while also beginning to write. His debut novel, Shuggie Bain – which had initially been turned down by many publishers on both sides of the Atlantic – was awarded the 2020 Booker Prize. His second novel, Young Mungo, was published in April 2022.

To read more, go to Wikipedia.

To check out “Poems in the Key of Carlin,” or to see what else Curious Penman has to offer, check out our Browse Books page.

Colm Tóibín Biobite

Today’s Happy Birthday shout out goes to Colm Tóibín, born May 30, 1955.

Colm Tóibín is an Irish novelist, short story writer, essayist, journalist, critic, playwright and poet.

His first novel, The South, was published in 1990. The Blackwater Lightship was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. The Master (a fictionalised version of the inner life of Henry James) was also shortlisted for the Booker Prize and won the 2006 International Dublin Literary Award, securing for Toíbín a bounty of thousands of euro as it is one of the richest literary awards in the world. Nora Webster won the Hawthornden Prize, whilst The Magician (a fictionalised version of the life of Thomas Mann) won the Folio Prize. His fellow artists elected him to Aosdána and he won the biennial “UK and Ireland Nobel” David Cohen Prize in 2021.

To read more, go to Wikipedia.

To check out “Poems in the Key of Carlin,” or to see what else Curious Penman has to offer, check out our Browse Books page.

Spilled Ink VA

05/29/2024 – Hello and Happy Summer from Curious Penman! Spilled In VA was held on Friday, May 24, 2024 at Jirani Coffeehouse at 9425 West St in Manassas VA at 6 pm, and it was a blast! Curious Penman and the host of Happy Hour Café were among those in attendance. Curious Penman and the host of Happy Hour Café were among those in attendance. Curious Penman read excerpts from an upcoming book in the Knight Shade series to be published later this year. Jirani Coffeehouse is a regular hub of writing activity during fourth weekends, with Happy Hour Café moving to Jirani from 4-6pm every fourth Friday, followed by Spilled Ink VA from 6-9pm. Happy Hour Café is a place for aspiring writers to meet and discuss work, accompanied by exercises to encourage creativity (Bring pen and paper). Spilled Ink VA is an open mic venue for new and established writers to road test new material in front of a built-in audience. And beginning in June, the Java Press Book Club will host monthly get together venues at Jirani every Fourth Saturday at 12:45 pm! If you’re looking to grow your writing skills, meet fellow scribblers, or just see what there is to offer, be at Jirani Coffeehouse every Fourth Friday at 4 pm and every Fourth Saturday at 12:45 pm!. Catch you on the flipside!

André Brink Biobite

Today’s Happy Birthday shout out goes to André Brink, born May 29, 1935.

André Philippus Brink was a South African novelist, essayist and poet. He wrote in both Afrikaans and English and taught English at the University of Cape Town.

In the 1960s Brink, Ingrid Jonker, Etienne Leroux and Breyten Breytenbach were key figures in the significant Afrikaans dissident intellectual and literary movement known as Die Sestigers (“The Sixty-ers”). These writers sought to expose the Afrikaner people to world literature, to use the Afrikaans language to speak out against the extreme Afrikaner nationalist and white supremacist National Party-controlled government, and also to introduce literary modernism, postmodernist literature, magic realism and other global trends into Afrikaans literature.

To read more, go to Wikipedia.

To check out “Poems in the Key of Carlin,” or to see what else Curious Penman has to offer, check out our Browse Books page.

Ian Fleming Biobite

Today’s Happy Birthday shout out goes to Ian Fleming, born May 28, 1908.

Ian Lancaster Fleming was a British writer, best known for his postwar James Bond series of spy novels. Fleming came from a wealthy family connected to the merchant bank Robert Fleming & Co., and his father was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Henley from 1910 until his death on the Western Front in 1917. Educated at Eton, Sandhurst, and, briefly, the universities of Munich and Geneva, Fleming moved through several jobs before he started writing.

To read more, go to Wikipedia.

To check out “Poems in the Key of Carlin,” or to see what else Curious Penman has to offer, check out our Browse Books page.

Dashiell Hammett Biobite

Today’s Happy Birthday shout out goes to Dashiell Hammett, born May 27, 1894.

Samuel Dashiell Hammett was an American writer of hard-boiled detective novels and short stories. He was also a screenwriter and political activist. Among the characters he created are Sam Spade (The Maltese Falcon), Nick and Nora Charles (The Thin Man), The Continental Op (Red Harvest and The Dain Curse) and the comic strip character Secret Agent X-9.

Hammett is regarded as one of the very best mystery writers. In his obituary in The New York Times, he was described as “the dean of the… ‘hard-boiled’ school of detective fiction.”

To read more, go to Wikipedia.

To check out “Poems in the Key of Carlin,” or to see what else Curious Penman has to offer, check out our Browse Books page.

Alan Hollinghurst Biobite

Today’s Happy Birthday shout out goes to Alan Hollinghurst, born May 26, 1954.

Alan James Hollinghurst FRSL is an English novelist, poet, short story writer and translator. He won the 1989 Somerset Maugham Award, the 1994 James Tait Black Memorial Prize, and for his novel The Line of Beauty the 2004 Booker Prize. Hollinghurst is credited with having helped gay-themed fiction to break into the literary mainstream through his six novels since 1988.

To read more, go to Wikipedia.

To check out “Poems in the Key of Carlin,” or to see what else Curious Penman has to offer, check out our Browse Books page.

Edward Bulwer-Lytton Biobite

Today’s Happy Birthday shout out goes to Edward Bulwer-Lytton, born May 25, 1803.

Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton, was an English writer and politician. He served as a Whig member of Parliament from 1831 to 1841 and a Conservative from 1851 to 1866. He was Secretary of State for the Colonies from June 1858 to June 1859, choosing Richard Clement Moody as founder of British Columbia. A noted philhellene, Bulwer-Lytton was offered the Crown of Greece in 1862 after King Otto abdicated, but he declined. He was created Baron Lytton of Knebworth in 1866.

To read more, go to Wikipedia.

To check out “Poems in the Key of Carlin,” or to see what else Curious Penman has to offer, check out our Browse Books page.

Bob Dylan Biobite

Today’s Happy Birthday shout out goes to Bob Dylan, born May 24, 1941.

Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter. Often considered to be one of the greatest songwriters in history, Dylan has been a major figure in popular culture over his 60-year career. He rose to prominence in the 1960s, when his songs “Blowin’ in the Wind” and “The Times They Are a-Changin’” became anthems for the civil rights and antiwar movements. Initially modeling his style on Woody Guthrie’s folk songs, Robert Johnson’s blues, and what he called the “architectural forms” of Hank Williams’s country songs, Dylan added increasingly sophisticated lyrical techniques to the folk music of the early 1960s, infusing it “with the intellectualism of classic literature and poetry”. His lyrics incorporated political, social, and philosophical influences, defying pop music conventions and appealing to the burgeoning counterculture.

To read more, go to Wikipedia.

To check out “Poems in the Key of Carlin,” or to see what else Curious Penman has to offer, check out our Browse Books page.