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The Story of Writing

@sownow.bsky.social

1.3K followers 1.7K following 3.1K posts

A daily podcast about writing and writers that changed things, like minds, the world, etc.
https://storyofwriting.com

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The Story of Writing @sownow.bsky.social · May 15

The Story of Writing podcast rules:

-Talk about writers and writing that made the world better
-Every episode should include women and people of color
-Feminism is equality for all
-Stay woke
-Encourage reading
-Respect short attention spans
-Find joy and share it
#BookSky #History #OTD #Authors

Story of Writing

storyofwriting.com

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Zane

@moochie6us.bsky.social

From over on the mastodon
💙📚

November 26, 2025 at 7:54 AM

The Story of Writing

@sownow.bsky.social

November 25, 2025 at 7:57 PM

The Story of Writing

@sownow.bsky.social

It is Helen Hooven Santmyer's birthday.

Look back, if you must.

“In a way, looking back, it seemed a long, long time since she had been eighteen, but in another way her memories were so clear and vivid that it seemed like yesterday. Time was an accordion, all the air squeezed out of it as you grew old. And how strange that in your mind you did not feel any older. You were the same person, but where had the years gone?”

–Helen Hooven Santmyer, "And Ladies of the Club," 1982

November 25, 2025 at 3:28 PM

The Story of Writing

@sownow.bsky.social

“When we get presidents with brains it's purely by accident. Who was ever selected for his brains? We choose them for other qualities, or because they can be elected.” American writer Helen Hooven Santmyer was born on this day in 1895.
#WriterSky #BookSky #History #OTD

She was an English professor, then Head of the English department and Dean of students at Cedarville College in Ohio. The school was bought by a Baptist group that demanded strict adherence to their religious traditions. Santmyer quit and became a research librarian in Dayton, OH. She was in her 80s when she published her best-known work, the New York Times bestseller titled And Ladies of the Club.

An undated b/w photo of Helen Hooven Santmyer
Source: Read Up Next

November 25, 2025 at 3:01 PM

The Story of Writing

@sownow.bsky.social

On this day in 1986, members of the administration of Republican Ronald Reagan were found guilty of illegally selling weapons to Iran. The profits from those sales went to Nicaraguan death squads.
#HighCrimes #History #OTD

Lt. Col. Oliver North testifies before the joint House-Senate committee investigating the Iran-Contra affair on July 10, 1987. | AP Photo
Source: Politico

November 25, 2025 at 2:47 PM

The Story of Writing

@sownow.bsky.social

On this day in 1947, the Hollywood Ten were blacklisted by movie studios. The ten men who refused to testify before the House of Representatives Committee on Un-American Activities, were told they would not be hired, employed, or paid by the movie studios.
#Blacklist #Censorship #History #OTD #HUAC

This was part of the Red Scare, when some Republican members of Congress accused some script and screenplay writers of thought crimes.
To be clear, the accused had not committed any actual crimes. The ten blacklisted individuals simply refused - on principle - to testify before Congress. They believed the Republicans’ actions on this issue violated the U.S. Constitution. The Hollywood Ten were right. A couple of legal cases in the 1960s and 70s found that Red Scare laws banning communist sympathies were, in fact, NOT legal.

A b/w photo, taken in 1950, of members of the Hollywood Ten and their families protesting the impending incarceration of the screenwriters who refused to speak to the House UnAmerican Activities Committee.
This is a screenshot from the documentary film Legacy of the Hollywood Blacklist (1987)

November 25, 2025 at 1:10 PM

The Story of Writing

@sownow.bsky.social

On this day in 1915, Albert Einstein presented his equations on general relativity to the Prussian Academy of Sciences. This theory starts to explain the relationship between spacetime and the physical things that are distributed across it.
#Science #SciSky #Physics #History #OTD

Within the field of physics, Einstein’s theory of general relativity is summed up as “matter tells spacetime how to curve, and curved spacetime tells matter how to move.” Outside the field of physics, it’s described as a bass player on stage with a rock band, playing the music that shakes all those hips in the audience, but the bass player is listening less to the band while playing rhythm in time with all those hips shaking on the dance floor.

Another part of Einstein’s theory of general relativity revolves around not so much time as timing. By 1915, when he presented his calculations, Europe was already convulsed by WW1. The nationalistic fervor of the Prussian government and many of its people strained relationships with scientists elsewhere. This meant that, when Einstein submitted his equations on general relativity, not much happened within the scientific community. There were no known attempts to prove or disprove the theory. But after the war ended, an international group of physicists came together for the eclipse expedition of 1919. Part of the group went to Principe Island, just north of the equator, off the central coast of Africa, while another part went to Sobral, just south of the equator in Brazil. Both groups used specialized cameras to take photos of the eclipse. These pictures allowed the scientists to document how starlight itself was deflected or bent during the eclipse. It proved Einstein’s theory and it also helped reunite the international community of physicists.

A b/w photo of Albert Einstein taken in 1912.
Credit: ETH-Bibliothek Zürich, Bildarchiv / Fotograf: Langhans, J. F.
Image source: Science Museum (UK)

November 25, 2025 at 12:52 PM

The Story of Writing

@sownow.bsky.social

Simple and lovely:

Nisi Shawl @nisishawl.bsky.social · 1d

This world is holy to me because it's the world in which my mother lived.

November 25, 2025 at 8:38 AM

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D. Earl Stephens

@dearlstephens.bsky.social

📌They appease Vladimir Putin and come after Mark Kelly.

Traitors. All of ‘em.

November 25, 2025 at 3:32 AM

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Zelena Sage

@zelenasage.blacksky.app

There are a lot of health issues you can't see, and nobody needs your commentary about what they're eating on Thanksgiving.

November 25, 2025 at 2:28 AM

The Story of Writing

@sownow.bsky.social

Happy Frances Hodgson Burnett's birthday to all who celebrate.

Tend the rose, my friends.

“One of the new things people began to find out in the last century was that thoughts—just mere thoughts—are as powerful as electric batteries—as good for one as sunlight, or as bad for one as poison. To let a sad thought or a bad one get into your mind is as dangerous as letting a scarlet fever germ get into your body. If you let it stay there, after it has got in, you may never get over it, as long as you live. Surprising things can happen to anyone who, when a disagreeable or discouraged thought comes to mind, has the sense to push it out by putting in an agreeable and courageous one. Two things cannot be in one place.
Where you tend a rose, my lad, a thistle cannot grow.”

–Frances Hodgson Burnett, "The Secret Garden," 1911

November 24, 2025 at 5:39 PM

The Story of Writing

@sownow.bsky.social

"...the air was full of Thoughts and Things to Say. But at times like these, only the Small Things are ever said. Big Things lurk unsaid inside.”
-Indian writer and activist Arundhati Roy, born on this day in 1961.
#WriterSky #BookSky #BOTD

She may be best known for her debut novel "The God of Small Things," published in 1997. It earned her that year’s Booker Prize. She donated the prize money and royalties from the book to human rights causes.

Color photo of author Arundhati Roy
Reuters

November 24, 2025 at 5:29 PM

The Story of Writing

@sownow.bsky.social

English-American writer Frances Hodgson Burnett was born on this day in 1849. She is best known for her three children's novels, "Little Lord Fauntleroy," "A Little Princess," and "The Secret Garden." Burnett wrote more than 50 books and 13 plays.
#WriterSky #BookSky #History #BOTD

In "The New York Times," author, critic, and filmmaker Dinitia Smith, wrote that – despite living in an era that idealized domesticity, Hodgson Burnett “loathed marriage and yet married twice and had lovers. She wrote about a feisty woman working at a pit mine, and – based on her own marriage – about a Washington society woman married to a man she doesn't love. These were ahead of their time in their treatment of adultery, spousal abuse, illegitimacy and female independence.”

A 1901 photo portrait of Frances Hodgson Burnett
Photo: Scribner's Sons

November 24, 2025 at 5:01 PM

The Story of Writing

@sownow.bsky.social

On this day in 1877, Anna Sewell published her novel "Black Beauty." It’s the only publication she wrote and it has become one of the best-selling books for children. But Sewell wrote the book for adults, especially those who worked with horses.
#WriterSky #BookSky #History #OTD

According to the writer Gina Dorré, Sewell said, “a special aim [of "Black Beauty"] was to induce kindness, sympathy, and an understanding treatment of horses.” The book is believed to have reduced animal cruelty. The use of painful bearing reins declined sharply in the years after the book’s publication.
One other thing about "Black Beauty" – it is believed to be one of the first English novels to be written from the perspective of a main character that was not human.

An image of the green cover of the novel Black Beauty, first edition 1877, published by London: Jarrold and Sons

November 24, 2025 at 12:57 PM

Reposted by The Story of Writing

Raider

@iwillnotbesilenced.bsky.social

"The function of freedom is to free someone else."
- Toni Morrison

November 23, 2025 at 11:00 PM

The Story of Writing

@sownow.bsky.social

“It was language I loved, not meaning. I liked poetry better when I wasn't sure what it meant.”
-Canadian writer Patricia Kathleen -or P. K.- Page, born on this day in 1916.
#WriterSky #PoetSky #ArtSky #BookSky #History #BOTD

She wrote poetry, fiction, travel diaries, essays, children's books, and an autobiography. She was also a visual artist, who exhibited her work as P.K. Irwin. In 2001, by special resolution of the United Nations, Page's poem "Planet Earth" was read simultaneously in New York, the Antarctic, and the South Pacific to celebrate the International Year of Dialogue Among Civilizations.

A b/w photo of P. K. Page
Credit: Unknown
Source: Queens University Archives

November 23, 2025 at 5:21 PM

The Story of Writing

@sownow.bsky.social

“Every man knows that slavery is a curse. Whoever denies this, his lips libel his heart.”
-American author Theodore Dwight Weld, born on this day in 1803. He was a strident abolitionist.
#WriterSky #BookSky #Abolition #AntiSlavery #History #OTD

In 1839, he co-authored the book American Slavery as It Is: Testimony of a Thousand Witnesses. The author Harriet Beecher Stowe partly based her landmark novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin on Weld's text. Her father, Lyman Beecher, described Weld as “eloquent as an angel, and powerful as thunder.” Beecher also said that Weld’s words were “logic on fire.”

A b/w illustration of American abolitionist Theodore Dwight Weld
Credit: unknown
Image source: U.S. Library of Congress

November 23, 2025 at 4:47 PM

The Story of Writing

@sownow.bsky.social

On this day in 1963, the BBC broadcast the first episode of "Doctor Who." The show is now more than 60 years old, making it the longest running sci-fi drama on television.
#Whovian #DrWho #TV #History #OTD

A b/w still of "An Unearthly Child," the first episode of the television show "Dr. Who." The BBC first aired the show on November 23, 1963.
Source: Aunt Beeb

November 23, 2025 at 4:40 PM

The Story of Writing

@sownow.bsky.social

OK. I like this guy.

We should demand this of anyone running for Congress:

Impeach the President.

Also, abolish ICE, remove the SocSec cap, and levy progressive taxes on all individuals, corporations, and wealth above $100 million.

None of this is extremist or radical.

𝕲𝖆𝖊𝖙𝖆𝖓𝖔 @gmf1369.bsky.social · 3d

#GVerse #KingResist #Unite #FBaRmy

@nikkibas.bsky.social
@browneyegirlhi.bsky.social
@coko.bsky.social
@kingresist.bsky.social
@rubicon1313.bsky.social

David Clayton is running for congress in NC's District 5 against #FuckMAGA Republican Virginia Foxx — and this is how he introduced himself.👇

November 23, 2025 at 4:34 PM

The Story of Writing

@sownow.bsky.social

On this day in 1924, The New York Times published astronomer Edwin Hubble’s discovery that Andromeda was not a nebula, as had been thought, but another galaxy – similar to the Milky Way.
#ScienceSky #Galaxy #History #OTD

A 1931 b/w photo portrait of Edwin Powell Hubble.
Photographer: Johan Hagemeyer, Camera Portraits Carmel.
Source: The Huntington Municipal Library

November 23, 2025 at 4:15 PM

The Story of Writing

@sownow.bsky.social

On this day in 1921, nearly two years after the U.S. prohibited the sale or consumption of alcohol, President Warren G. Harding signed a law barring physicians from prescribing beer for medicinal purposes.
#History #Prohibition #OTD

Spirits and wine could still be prescribed, but only half a pint. And doctors could only write 100 prescriptions for alcohol every three months.

November 23, 2025 at 4:06 PM

The Story of Writing

@sownow.bsky.social

On this day in 1644, the English poet John Milton published his pamphlet "Areopagitica." It was a denunciation of censorship, now seen as the cornerstone of freedom of the press.
#WriterSky #BookSky #History #OTD #Censorship
upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/co...

Milton was responding to an English law – passed the previous year – that required authors to have a license, approved by the government, before their work could be published.
The former Cornell philosophy professor George Sabine described Areopagitica as an urgent appeal to the public. Sabine wrote, “Its basic principle was the right and also the duty of every intelligent man as a rational being, to know the grounds and take responsibility for his beliefs and actions. Its corollary was a society and a state in which decisions are reached by open discussion, in which the sources of information are not contaminated by authority in the interest of party, and in which political unity is secured not by force but by a consensus that respects variety of opinion.”

Photo of the title page of John Milton's "Areopagitica."
Source: Southern Methodist University, Texas | Bridwell Library

November 23, 2025 at 4:03 PM

The Story of Writing

@sownow.bsky.social

Spot on. No notes.

Too many Americans behave like toddlers in tribes struggling to prove which one has more imbeciles.

الكسندرا ميراي @lexialex.bsky.social · 3d

I am really losing patience with Americans who treat their elected officials like celebrities they have to defend, instead of representatives they have to hold responsible. Grow the fuck up. Millions of lives are at stake.

November 23, 2025 at 3:49 PM