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The Story of Writing

@sownow.bsky.social

1.1K followers 1.6K following 2.6K 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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The Story of Writing @sownow.bsky.social · 5h

Spy magazine in 1991:
“A mobster who knew Trump socially said of him once, ‘He’d lie to you about what time of day it is - just for the practice.’”

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The Story of Writing @sownow.bsky.social · 9h

The defenestration of Pravda

The Story of Writing @sownow.bsky.social · 13h

I can see it now:
“The Pretentious Kitchen” from Chef Gloat Smugly

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

This says it pretty clearly:

The Case for the Forever Shutdown

Senate Democrats actually allowing the GOP to stop funding the government is only the first step. Now they have to make the case that Trump’s government is illegitimate.

newrepublic.com

The Story of Writing @sownow.bsky.social · 18h

One of many remarkable things about Solzhenitsyn's writing: after all he saw of humanity, he still believed that many people had some good in them.

This is from "Gulag Archipelago"

“If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it was necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?”

The Story of Writing @sownow.bsky.social · 18h

Dude.
That has cheese, noodles, onions, tomato (sauce), and basil - sure, it's dried and ground into powder, but it >was< (at some point) a leafy green.
Add some sour cream and mayo and you'd have what the people of Wisconsin call a salad.

Reposted by The Story of Writing

Texas Paul @realtexaspaul.com · 23h

I don't understand why I see things so differently. I see a health insurance industry that thinks it's entitled to charge people 1/3rd of their income for healthcare. That industry shouldn't be "fixed." It should be burned to the ground and its ashes pissed on.

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Michael J. Stern @michaeljstern.bsky.social · 1d

In a nutshell.

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The Story of Writing @sownow.bsky.social · 21h

It is the birthday of the author who wrote,
“There are all kinds of worlds in the real world. Most people don't know that.”
U.S. author R. L. Stine was born on this day in 1943.
#WriterSky #BookSky #BOTD

He has written hundreds of fictional horror novels for younger readers. He may be best known for the Goosebumps series. Stine’s books have sold more than 400 million copies.

A color photo portrait of author R. L. Stein
Source: the author's website

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The Story of Writing @sownow.bsky.social · 21h

It was on this day in 1982 that the play "Cats" opened on Broadway in New York City. The show ran for almost 18 years before closing in the year 2000.
#MusicSky #MusicalTheater #Broadway

The promo poster for the Broadway show "Cats." On a black background, the yellow eyes of a cat, but, instead of pupils, each eye shows a dancer.

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The Story of Writing @sownow.bsky.social · 21h

Marking the day in 1970 when Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, it's certainly instructive to look at the writing that led to his expulsion from the Soviet Union.
This passage, specifically, is relevant in the U.S. today:

#Resist

And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say good-bye to his family? Or if, during periods of mass arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the entire city, people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling with terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing left to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand? The police state would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers and transport and, notwithstanding all of Stalin's thirst, the cursed machine would have ground to a halt!
If…
If.
We didn't love freedom enough. And even more – we had no awareness of the real situation. We purely and simply deserved everything that happened afterward.

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The Story of Writing @sownow.bsky.social · 21h

On October 8th, 1970, Russian author Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature. Years before this, he had been imprisoned for his criticism of Soviet rule, but was released in 1953.
#WriterSky #BookSky #Persecution #History #OTD

In 1970, Solzhenitsyn worried that, if he went to Sweden to accept the Nobel Prize, the Soviet Union would not allow him to return to his home. In 1973, after a French printer published Solzhenitsyn’s book Gulag Archipelago – about Soviet penitentiaries – he was formally expelled from the country. The following year, he went to Sweden and accepted the Nobel Prize.

An undated color photo of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Source: Journalism Is Not A Crime (website)

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The Story of Writing @sownow.bsky.social · 21h

On this day in 1962, German magazine Der Spiegel published an article that led to accusations of treason.
#FreedomOfThePress #History #OTD

Staffers were detained for running a story about low morale and a lack of preparedness affecting West Germany’s military. Police searched and confiscated the magazine’s files and occupied Der Spiegel’s offices for more than a month. Eventually the nation’s federal minister of defense, Franz Josef Strauss admitted that he was responsible for the accusations and heavy-handed police tactics. The charges were summarily dropped. This incident tested post-war, democratic governance in Europe and it resulted in greater protections for freedom of the press in West Germany.

A b/w photo of public demonstrations in the city of Munich against charging Der Spiegel with treason.
Source: German History in Documents and Images

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Sheryl Weikal and the colorful Parrotlegals @leftistlawyer.com · 1d

Conversion therapy isn't "voluntary" for children when their parents are the ones deciding to do it.

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Zelena Sage @zelenasage.blacksky.app · 1d

Nice to see people drawing from the ✨American revolution ✨ and ✨Civil war ✨ playbooks

Stop feeding, quartering, supplying and entertaining the oppressors.

Dr. Mar 💙 @boldnewme.bsky.social · 1d

ICE agents who enforce cruelty should face consequences too.

Denied shelter and food?

Accountability starts with how they treat others.

Actions have consequences.👇

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The Story of Writing @sownow.bsky.social · 1d

You're right. They could have.
They could have taught us that skin, eye, and hair color are the result of melanin - and that melanin has no effect on intellect or skeletal and muscle development.
But they didn't.
Americans swim in oceans of ignorance, disinformation, and outright bullshit.

The Story of Writing @sownow.bsky.social · 1d

Re-posting for that second graf:

Tom Cox @dj-acid-reflux.bsky.social · 1d

If you feel that my writing is in some way "inferior" because it no longer has the word "Substack" associated with it, I am only too happy for you to unsubscribe from my newsletter..

Substack is nobody's friend. Substack is not writing. Substack is a tech company, funded by venture capitalists.

Tom Cox @dj-acid-reflux.bsky.social · 6d

I've decided to make this piece permanently unpaywalled, as a sample of the writing I do on my newsletter. If you like it, you might enjoy a subscription. If not, you probably won't.

P.S. It's significantly better if you read it to the end, I promise.

www.tom-cox.com/once-upon-a-...

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The Story of Writing @sownow.bsky.social · 1d

It is the birthday of the lawyer and professor who wrote,
“Racial caste systems do not require racial hostility or overt bigotry to thrive. They need only racial indifference.”
Activist and writer Michelle Alexander was born on this day in 1967.
#WriterSky #BookSky #Opinion #BOTD

She is best known for her book, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness and her work as an opinion columnist for The New York Times.

An undated color photo of Michelle Alexander
Source: Goodreads

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The Story of Writing @sownow.bsky.social · 1d

It is the birthday of the author who wrote,
“What the future held for her she didn't know. Of two things only she was certain. There would be children-her own or other people's-and there would be books.”
The writer Alice Dalgliesh was born on this day in 1893.
#WriterSky #BookSky #History #BOTD

She wrote more than 40 books, mostly historic fiction and mostly for children. Dalgliesh was also the founding editor of Scribner’s & Sons children’s book division.

An undated b/w photo portrait of author Alice Dalgliesh
Source: Library Thing

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The Story of Writing @sownow.bsky.social · 1d

It is the birthday, in 1849, of U.S. poet James Whitcomb Riley. He wrote more than 1,000 poems, including "Raggedy Man," which inspired production of the Raggedy Ann doll.
#WriterSky #Poet #History #BOTD

Portrait of James Whitcomb Riley
1903
John S. Sargent

The Days Gone By, 1914
James Whitcomb Riley

O the days gone by! O the days gone by!
The apples in the orchard, and the pathway through the rye;
The chirrup of the robin, and the whistle of the quail
As he piped across the meadows sweet as any nightingale;
When the bloom was on the clover, and the blue was in the sky,
And my happy heart brimmed over in the days gone by.

In the days gone by, when my naked feet were tripped
By the honey-suckle’s tangles where the water-lilies dipped,
And the ripples of the river lipped the moss along the brink
Where the placid-eyed and lazy-footed cattle came to drink,
And the tilting snipe stood fearless of the truant’s wayward cry
And the splashing of the swimmer, in the days gone by.

O the days gone by! O the days gone by!
The music of the laughing lip, the luster of the eye;
The childish faith in fairies, and Aladdin’s magic ring—
The simple, soul-reposing, glad belief in everything,—
When life was like a story, holding neither sob nor sigh,
In the golden olden glory of the days gone by.

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The Story of Writing @sownow.bsky.social · 1d

Damn right.
Spaceman Spiff > Ebenezer Scrooge

Jonathan Edward Durham @thisone0verhere.bsky.social · 2d

I’m a huge Hemingway fan. I’ve read everything Faulkner, Joyce, Ellison, Twain, and Brontë have ever written. I even own the complete library Dickens collection, all 28 volumes. And do you know which books have taught me the most about life? Calvin and Hobbes.

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The Story of Writing @sownow.bsky.social · 1d

It is the birthday of the novelist who stared down the northernmost raid of Confederate soldiers in the U.S. Civil War. Ann Eliza Smith was born on this day in 1819.
#BadAssWoman #WriterSky #BookSky #History #BOTD

She wrote the novels Seola, Selma, and Atla. Smith was also the wife of Vermont’s governor, whose house was the target of a small group of Confederate soldiers who raided the Vermont town of St. Albans. The soldiers had already robbed banks and other targets in the town before reaching Smith’s house. The Governor wasn’t home, but Smith grabbed the only weapon she could find – an unloaded pistol – and opened her door to brandish the gun. The raiders fled and moved on to other targets, but Smith gathered a posse to chase them down. The rebels reached the Canadian border, though, and escaped capture in the U.S.

A painting of Ann Eliza Brainerd Smith, the wife of Gov. J. Gregory Smith and a renaissance woman acknowledged by many as “accomplished in her own right.”
Source: The St. Albans Messenger | The Saint Albans Museum

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The Story of Writing @sownow.bsky.social · 1d

A reckoning will come.
Not in any imagined "next" life.
Here. In our courts. And prisons.
We only need to resist and work toward an overwhelming Blue wave in the next election.

I want to see those ice agents frog marched into that reckoning.

prettylight10.bsky.social @prettylight10.bsky.social · 2d

"They tried to kill this woman because she annoyed them and they are charging because she lived. Her being alive is an assault on them."

Gillian Brockell @gbrockell.bsky.social · 2d

Claim: 10 cars rammed ICE
Truth: No cars rammed ICE

Claim: She boxed ICE in
Truth: ICE boxed her in

Claim: She shot a rifle at ICE
Truth: She did not have a rifle

Claim: ICE returned fire
Truth: Only ICE fired

Claim: She drove herself to the hospital
Truth: Paramedics found her

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The Story of Writing @sownow.bsky.social · 1d

I know nothing about this, but I'm reposting because I have "discovered" so, so, so many great stories by reading anthologies like this.

And because, if I ever manage to accumulate enough money, I want to buy this book, tell the world to leave me alone for a while, and immerse myself in its pages.

Tramp Press @tramppress.bsky.social · 1d

We are delighted to share the cover for a very special project we've been working on for Christmas 2025! An Alternative Irish Christmas is an anthology of stories, in traditional, unusual, extract, and essay form by some of our favourite authors. 1/🧵

Contents page of An Alternative Irish Christmas, listing stories by: Jessica Traynor, Sophie White, Mike McCormack, Roisin Kiberd, Niall Bourke, Maggie Armstrong, Arja Kajermo, Sue Rainsford, Soula Emmanuel, Briana Fitzsimons, Belinda McKeon, Tim MacGabhann, and Anne Enright.

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Aunty Em @everycourthouse.bsky.social · 2d

“We are home now. We marched from the park to ICE, very peaceful crowd. We were standing around ICE pushed us down, sprayed us with chemical and I was hit in the head with a projectile. This was so unprovoked. People have to know that the Feds are attacking people with NO provocation whatsoever.”

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