Tag: fiction

Anna Laetitia Barbauld Biobite

Today’s Happy Birthday shout out goes to Anna Laetitia Barbauld, born June 20, 1743.

Anna Laetitia Barbauld was a prominent English poet, essayist, literary critic, editor, and author of children’s literature. A prominent member of the Blue Stockings Society and a “woman of letters” who published in multiple genres, Barbauld had a successful writing career that spanned more than half a century.

She was a noted teacher at the Palgrave Academy and an innovative writer of works for children. Her primers provided a model for more than a century. Her essays showed it was possible for a woman to be engaged in the public sphere; other women authors such as Elizabeth Benger emulated her. Barbauld’s literary career spanned numerous periods in British literary history: her work promoted the values of the enlightenment and of sensibility, while her poetry made a founding contribution to the development of British Romanticism.

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.

Elbert Hubbard Biobite

Today’s Happy Birthday shout out goes to Elbert Hubbard, born June 19, 1856.

Elbert Green Hubbard was an American writer, publisher, artist, and philosopher. Raised in Hudson, Illinois, he had early success as a traveling salesman for the Larkin Soap Company. Hubbard is known best as the founder of the Roycroft artisan community in East Aurora, New York, an influential exponent of the Arts and Crafts movement.

Among Hubbard’s many publications were the fourteen-volume work Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great and the short publication A Message to Garcia. He and his second wife, Alice Moore Hubbard, died aboard the RMS Lusitania when it was sunk by a German submarine off the coast of Ireland on May 7, 1915.

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.

Carl Van Vechten Biobite

Today’s Happy Birthday shout out goes to Carl Van Vechten, born June 17, 1880.

Carl Van Vechten was an American writer and artistic photographer who was a patron of the Harlem Renaissance and the literary executor of Gertrude Stein. He gained fame as a writer, and notoriety as well, for his 1926 novel Nigger Heaven. In his later years, he took up photography and took many portraits of notable people. Although he was married to women for most of his adult years, Van Vechten engaged in numerous homosexual affairs over his lifetime.

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.

Andy Weir Biobite

Today’s Happy Birthday shout out goes to Andy Weir, born June 16, 1972.

Andrew Taylor Weir  is an American novelist. His 2011 novel The Martian was adapted into the 2015 film of the same name directed by Ridley Scott. He received the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer in 2016and his 2021 novel Project Hail Mary was a finalist for the 2022 Hugo Award for Best Novel.

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.

Harriet Beecher Stowe Biobite

Today’s Happy Birthday shout out goes to Harriet Beecher Stowe, born June 14, 1811.

Harriet Elisabeth Beecher Stowe was an American author and abolitionist. She came from the religious Beecher family and wrote the popular novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin, which depicts the harsh conditions experienced by enslaved African Americans. The book reached an audience of millions as a novel and play, and became influential in the United States and in Great Britain, energizing anti-slavery forces in the American North, while provoking widespread anger in the South. Stowe wrote 30 books, including novels, three travel memoirs, and collections of articles and letters. She was influential both for her writings as well as for her public stances and debates on social issues of the day.

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.

Athol Fugard Biobite

Today’s Happy Birthday shout out goes to Athol Fugard, born June 11, 1932.

Athol Fugard is a South African playwright, novelist, actor, and director widely regarded as South Africa’s greatest playwright. He is best known for his political and penetrating plays opposing the system of apartheid. Some of these have also been adapted for film.

His novel Tsotsi was adapted as a film of the same name and won an Academy Award in 2005. It was directed by Gavin Hood.

Acclaimed in 1985 as “the greatest active playwright in the English-speaking world” by Time, Fugard continues to write. He has published more than thirty plays.

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.

Write By The Rails Workshop

06/08/2024 – Greetings one and all from Curious Penman. The Curious Penman staff were out and about in Old Town Manassas to attend a workshop held by Write By The Rails, a member organization of the Virginia Writers Club. This group event was at 10 am at Bull Run Unitarian Universalist Church at 9350 Main St in Manassas, VA, and it was awesome! Mary Ellen Stone hosted the event. Nine people joined the workshop and discussed poetry, fiction, and nonfiction. This was a critique and support workshop, where writers brought samples of their work.

After laying down the ground rules for the workshop, no dominating the conversation, make sure your input is constructive and don’t be needlessly negative or positive, give specifics, etc. Curious Penman joined the fiction group with a sample of an upcoming Knight Shade Files story, and listened to other ineresting works; a short story about the day in the life of a Naval Academy graduate, a Christian thriller, and an epic Irish fantasy tale! Subsequent Write By The Rails workshops will be held at Bull Run Unitarian every first Saturday at 10 am, the next one slated for Saturday, July 6, 2024.

Catch you on the flipside!

James Salter Biobite

Today’s Happy Birthday shout out goes to James Salter, born June 10, 1925.

James Arnold Horowitz, better known as James Salter, his pen name and later-adopted legal name, was an American novelist and short-story writer. Originally a career officer and pilot in the United States Air Force, he resigned from the military in 1957 following the successful publication of his first novel, The Hunters.

After a brief career in film writing and film directing, in 1979 Salter published the novel Solo Faces. He won numerous literary awards for his works, including belated recognition of works originally criticized at the time of their publication.

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.