August 1 – Herman Melville
“It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation.” ― Herman Melville Herman Melville was born August 1, 1819 in New York City. When his father died in 1832 Melville took on a number of jobs to support his family, eventually taking to sea. When he returned from his brief voyages, he began…
August 2nd – James Baldwin
“You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read.”James Baldwin August 2, 1924 – December 1, 1987 James Baldwin was born August 2, 1924 in Harlem, New York. James mother Emma Berdis Jones, left his biological father and later married a Baptist preacher, David Baldwin,…
August 3rd – Leon Uris
“Who here wants to be a writer?’ I asked. Everyone in the room raised his hand. ‘Why the hell aren’t you home writing?’ I said, and left the stage.” Leon Uris Leon Uris (August 3, 1924 – June 21, 2003) was a best-selling American author. Uris was born in Baltimore, Maryland. His father was a Polish…
August 4th – Dennis Lehane
“Narrative becomes the way you make sense of chaos. That’s how you focus the world. It’s the only reason you should ever try this writing job.” Dennis Lehane was born on August 4th, 1965 in the Dorchester neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts. The youngest of five children, both of his parents were Irish immigrants, his father…
August 5th – David Baldacci
“Write about what interests you rather than about what you know. Otherwise, you’ll get bored quickly. Writing is hard; it’s easy to give up. Stick with it!”David Baldacci Born August 5, 1960 in Richmond Virginia, David Baldacci is an American author of suspense and legal thrillers. His upbringing was very blue collar: his mother worked…
August 8 – Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings
“There are times when I resent—almost to madness—being a woman. I want to be a solitary fighter, loving no one, with no one loving me.” Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings was born August 8, 1896, in Washington D.C. She began writing as a young child, and at the age of 16 entered a story “The…
August 9 – P.L. Travers
I cannot summon up inspiration; I myself am summoned.P.L. Travers Born Helen Lyndon Goff on August 9th, 1899 in Maryborough, Queensland, Australian, future author P.L. Travers grew up in the Australian bush before being sent to boarding school in Sydney. Her father, Travers Robert Goff, was an unsuccessful bank manager who struggled with alcohol. He…
August 10th – Suzanne Collins
All the writing elements are the same. You need to tell a good story… You’ve got good characters… People think there’s some dramatic difference between writing ‘Little Bear’ and the ‘Hunger Games,’ and as a writer, for me, there isn’t.Suzanne Collins Author Suzanne Collins was born on August 10, 1962, in Connecticut. The daughter of…
August 11 – Alex Haley
“ Unlike other professions, writing has no finite length of time attached to its attainment. Most of the writers I know took ten years to start earning money from writing—and I mean hard work. You have just got to work, and work, and work, and keep having faith that one day it will happen. I…
August 12 – Walter Dean Myers
Everything in life is made up…You make up that you are happy. You make up that you are sad. You make up that you are in love. If you don’t make up your own life, who’s going to make it up for you? It’s bad enough when you die and everybody can make up their…
August 13th – Charles Williams
“Let us have all the delights of which we are capable.” Charles Williams Charles Williams was born on August 13, 1909, in San Angelo, Texas. He was an American author of hard-boiled crime fiction and is considered by some critics one of the finest suspense novelists of the 1950s and 1960s. After 10th grade Williams dropped…
August 14th – Danielle Steel
I try to give people hope. Even though life is bleak, there’s hope out there.Danielle Steel Danielle Steel has written nearly 200 books that have sold over 800 million copies. She is the fourth best-selling fiction writer of all time. Steel was born Danielle Fernandes Dominique Schuelein-Steel in New York on August 14, 1947. Her…
August 15th – Edith Nesbit
Life will give you what you ask of here if only you ask long enough and plainly enough. Edith Nesbit was born August 15, 1858 in Kennington, Surrey in the England. Her father died when she was just four years old, and after his death her family moved around, from England to France and Spain…
August 16th – Georgette Heyer
“I think myself I ought to be shot for writing such nonsense…. But it’s unquestionably good escapist literature and I think I should rather like it if I were sitting in an air-raid shelter or recovering from flu.”Georgette Heyer Georgette Heyer was born August 16, 1902 in Wimbledon, London, the eldest of three children of…
August 17th – V.S. Naipaul
“After all, we make ourselves according to the ideas we have of our possibilities.”V.S. Naipaul VS Naipaul was born August 17, 1932, on a sugar plantation on the island of Trinidad. He published more than thirty books in his lifetime and is best known for his novels depicting the legacy and destruction of the British…
August 18th – Lolita
“And the rest is rust and stardust.”Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov The first edition of Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov was published in the United States on August 18th, 1958. After the manuscript was finished, Nabokov hand-delivered it to publishers for submission, fearing sending it through the mail, calling it his ‘time bomb.’ At first, it was…
August 19th – Frank McCourt
“You might be poor, your shoes might be broken, but your mind is a palace.” Frank McCourt Memoirist Frank McCourt was born on August 19th, 1930, in Brooklyn, New York. In 1934, during the Great Depression and just after the death of his infant sister Margaret, McCourt’s family moved back to Ireland, eventually settling in Limerick,…
August 20th – Jacqueline Susann
“As a writer no one’s gonna tell me how to write. I’m gonna write the way I wanna write!”Jacqueline Susann Born August 20, 1918 in Philadelphia PA, Jacqueline Susann was an only child. After graduating from high school she moved to New York to become an actress. She appeared in multiple shows on Broadway, and…
August 21st – Aubrey Beardsley
“People hate to see their vices depicted, but vice is terrible and it should be depicted.”― Aubrey Beardsley Aubrey Beardsley, was an English illustrator and author. He was born August 21, 1872, Brighton, Sussex, England. His father suffered from inherited tuberculosis, and lost any fortune he had over a claim for “breach of promise of marriage”…
August 23 – Edgar Lee Masters
Edgar Lee Masters was an American attorney, poet, biographer, and dramatist. Masters was born August, 23, 1868 in Garnet, Kansas. His family moved back to Illinois shortly after, and like his father Masters became an attorney. He was a practicing lawyer for nearly 30 year in Chicago, and for a time partners with Clarence Darrow,…
August 26th – Guillaume Apollinaire
Now and then it’s good to pause in our pursuit of happiness and just be happyGuillaume Apollinaire French poet, playwright, short story writer, novelist, and art critic Guillaume Apollinaire was one of the most popular and influential poet and art critic of the early 20th century in Paris. He is considered by some to be…
August 30th – Virginia Lee Burton
Virginia Lee Burton was born August 30, 1909 in Newton Center, Massachusetts. Her mother was a poet and a musician, who published children’s books under the name Lena Dalkeith, and her father was a Dean at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. When she was eight, her father retired and the family moved to California for her…
August 31st – Eldridge Cleaver
Leroy Eldridge Cleaver was born August 31, 1935 in Wabbaseka, Arkansas. His family later moved to Phoenix, then settled in Los Angeles. Raised with an abusive father in a tough environment, he ran into problems and as a teenager he spent time in youth detention centers for petty crimes. After the age of 18 he…
Rumbling The Reason: Daily Inspiration 