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sownow.bsky.social
The Story of Writing
@sownow.bsky.social
1.2K followers 1.7K following 3K posts
A daily podcast about writing and writers that changed things, like minds, the world, etc.
https://storyofwriting.com
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sownow.bsky.social
Good summation:
November 10, 2025 at 1:44 PM
sownow.bsky.social
On this day in 1969 the very first episode of Sesame Street aired on National Educational Television, the channel that became PBS, the Public Broadcasting Service.
#History #OTD
A color photo of the cast of the first season of Sesame Street Source: Muppet.Fandom.com
November 10, 2025 at 1:41 PM
sownow.bsky.social
On November 10th, 1951, people in the U.S. could call anyone, coast-to-coast, by dialing directly. It's (now) like saying water was wet. But this was a big deal.
#History #OTD
Before this, calling long distance required an operator who would ask for a phone number to dial. The first call made using direct distance dialing was on this day in 1951 between Englewood, New Jersey and Alameda, California.
November 10, 2025 at 1:37 PM
sownow.bsky.social
This statement is demonstrably false - and shockingly stupid.

If Kaine believes this, he's too stupid to hold the office he has.

The only alternative is that he's too dishonest to hold his position.

Either way, he needs to get the fuck out.

#Unconscionable #Capitulation #Shitstain
November 10, 2025 at 1:28 PM
sownow.bsky.social
I really have only one question for these people:

How the fuck could you cave like this - for nothing?!
November 10, 2025 at 1:22 PM
sownow.bsky.social
On this day in 1918, a top-secret, coded message was sent from Europe to Ottawa and Washington, D.C. saying all combat between the nations of Europe, Asia, and North America would stop on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month.
#Armistice #History #OTD
An image of the communique from Europe to the U.S. and Canada announcing the end of WW1 combat. Source: The Independent (UK)
November 10, 2025 at 1:19 PM
sownow.bsky.social
Once again, The Onion sums it up perfectly:
November 10, 2025 at 1:06 PM
sownow.bsky.social
On this day in 1793, French lawmakers established a state-sponsored religion to replace Roman Catholicism. They wanted something really different: a religion that had none of the trappings of the metaphysical or supernatural.
#History #Religion #OTD
French leaders landed on what has come to be known as a secular religion. It’s a belief system that values nature or some other worldly element instead of deities. In 18th-Century France, the government called their secular religion the Cult of Reason, and it revolved around concepts like truth and liberty. Importantly, this belief system was imposed on all the people of France. And these were the flaws that led to the Cult of Reason’s demise. Faith is defined as belief in the unseen. Demanding that people devote themselves to reason, truth, and liberty – when people can see none of them – will cause that belief system to crumble, which is exactly what happened. The Cult of Reason was replaced the following May by the Cult of the Supreme Being. Both cults were officially banned by Napoleon just a few years later. Believed to be made in 1793, this image depicts a scene in Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris. A few young girls appear as priestesses of philosophy, and celebrate the cult of the goddess "Reason", personified by a young woman dressed in a draped tunic and a Phrygian cap. Source: Gallica Digital Library
November 10, 2025 at 12:54 PM
sownow.bsky.social
I don't think he knows what that word (or any word) means.

#SHPOS #Skid #Mark
November 9, 2025 at 5:54 PM
sownow.bsky.social
Imagine being THIS CLOSE to getting it.

And then IGNORING the fact that oppressors have divided New Yorkers into an in group and the oppressed FOR CENTURIES.

This is Jeff Bezos' editorial board. They and their ignorant ideology need to be swept into the ash can of history.

#Horse'sAss
November 9, 2025 at 5:49 PM
sownow.bsky.social
It is the birthday of the musician who sang,
“Gimme brains for breakfast baby / And gimme more for lunch / Throw me a bone for dinner yeah yeah / A girl could starve on a boy like you”
American singer songwriter Allison Wolfe was born on this day in 1969.
#MusicSky #RiotGrrl #BOTD
She is a founding member of the punk rock band Bratmobile which played an important role in launching the riot grrl movement. Wolfe’s music and the movement created a space where women could express anger, rage, frustration, and other emotions that were not welcome or tolerated on some mainstream platforms. An undated color photo of Allison Wolfe Photo credit: Conor Collins Image source: allisonwolfe.com
November 9, 2025 at 5:40 PM
sownow.bsky.social
It is the birthday of the musician who sang,
“If you missed the train I'm on / You will know that I am gone / You can hear the whistle blow a hundred miles.”
American singer-songwriter Mary Travers was born on this day in 1936. She was 1/3 of the 1960s folk group Peter, Paul, and Mary.
#MusicSky
Travers’ work was recognized with many awards, including five Grammys. And as an icon of the folk revival era, she became a passionate advocate for peace and social justice. An undated b/w photo of Mary Travers Source: The New York Times
November 9, 2025 at 5:28 PM
sownow.bsky.social
It is the birthday in 1854 of American activist and author Maud Howe Elliott. She is best known as the co-author – with her sisters – of their mother's biography, "The Life of Julia Ward Howe." Maud Howe Elliott wrote many other books and was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1917.
#WriterSky #BookSky
An 1877 painted portrait of Maud Howe (before she married and took the last name "Elliott"). Artist: Benjamin Curtis Porter Source: Newport R.I. Art Museum.⁠
November 9, 2025 at 4:54 PM
sownow.bsky.social
The Fall of the Berlin Wall began on this day in 1989. The wall began as a fence, erected in the summer of 1961. It ran between West Berlin, which was allied with western powers, including the U.S., UK, and others, and East Berlin, which was under strict authoritarian rule by the Soviet Union.
#OTD
The partition became two walls with landmines between them. It symbolized the tight-fisted controls imposed by East German leaders and the Supreme Soviet. Much of the region, from East Germany and Poland, south to Bulgaria and Albania, was controlled by the Soviets after years of ruthless combat with Nazi Germany in WW2. Starting with Premier Joseph Stalin, Soviet rulers saw the Eastern Bloc nations, as they were called, as a buffer that could prevent the kinds of battles that killed millions of Russians in the early 1940s. But time passed, attitudes and politics changed, and the stifling authoritarianism of Soviet control became intolerable within the Eastern Bloc. Civil unrest and demonstrations led to the fall of the Berlin wall. Its crumbling was also a symbol of the fading power and influence of the Soviet Union. Crowds gather on both sides of the Berlin Wall - even straddling one wall, as seen in this photo - to begin the demonstrations that finally brought down the wall. Source: CNN
November 9, 2025 at 4:31 PM
sownow.bsky.social
In the year 1938, in Germany, Austria, and the Sudetenland, November 9th was Kristallnacht or the Night of Broken Glass. It was a coordinated attack on the storefronts of businesses owned by Jewish people and an attack on the people themselves.
#History #OTD #Holocaust #AntiSemitism
A mix of paramilitary Nazi squads, Hitler youth, and other anti-Semites also broke the windows of Jewish homes and temples. Some buildings were set on fire, some Jews were kidnapped, some were murdered. Rioters destroyed 267 synagogues, and more than 7,000 Jewish businesses. Approximately 30,000 Jewish men were arrested and sent to Nazi concentration camps. The pogrom began after a Nazi diplomat was shot and killed in France by a Jewish teenager. A b/w photo of a synagogue in flames in Siegen, Germany, during Kristallnacht, November 9/10, 1938 Image source: Yad Vashem [Hand and Name] Photo Archives
November 9, 2025 at 4:24 PM
sownow.bsky.social
Tag yourself.
I am everyone in this damn photo:
November 8, 2025 at 7:01 PM
sownow.bsky.social
“What is pertinent is the calmness of beauty, its sense of restraint. It is as though the land knows of its own beauty, its own greatness, and feels no need to shout it.”
-Japanese-born, British novelist Kazuo Ishiguro, born on this day in 1954.
#WriterSky #BookSky #BOTD
He was awarded the Booker Prize in 1989 for his novel The Remains of the Day. And he won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2017. An undated color photo portrait of writer Kazuo Ishiguro Photo credit: Francesco Guidicini/The Times/NI Syndication/Redux Source: The New Yorker
November 8, 2025 at 5:36 PM
sownow.bsky.social
“I tell you loneliness is the thing to master. Courage and fear, love, death are only parts of it and can easily be ruled afterwards. If I make myself master my own loneliness there will be peace or safety: and perhaps these are the same.”
-Martha Gellhorn, born on this day in 1908.
#WriterSky #BOTD
She reported on so many major world conflicts, she is considered one of the great war correspondents of the 20th Century. She inspired the creation of the UK-based Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism. A 1943 b/w photo portrait of Martha Gellhorn Photo credit: Lee Miller Source: National Endowment for the Humanities
November 8, 2025 at 5:04 PM
sownow.bsky.social
“Until you've lost your reputation, you never realize what a burden it was or what freedom really is.”
-American writer Margaret Mitchell, born on this day in 1900. She is synonymous with her masterwork, "Gone with the Wind."
#WriterSky #BookSky #History #BOTD
An undated b/w photo portrait of author Margaret Mitchell Source: Fulton County Library System
November 8, 2025 at 4:48 PM
sownow.bsky.social
“How blessed are some people, whose lives have no fears, no dreads; to whom sleep is a blessing that comes nightly, and brings nothing but sweet dreams.”
-Irish writer Bram Stoker, born on this day in 1847. He is synonymous with his masterwork "Dracula."
#WriterSky #BookSky #History #BOTD
A b/w photo portrait of Bram Stoker, 1906 Source: U.S. National Endowment for the Humanities
November 8, 2025 at 4:39 PM
sownow.bsky.social
“The loss of liberty which must attend being a wife was of all things the most horrible to my imagination.”
-English writer Sarah Fielding, born on this day in 1710.
#WriterSky #History #BookSky #BOTD
She wrote what is thought to be the first novel in the English language for children, titled The Governess or the Little Female Academy, published in 1749. An undated painted portrait of author Sarah Fielding Painter: unknown Source: 18thcbritishchildrensliterature.weebly.com
November 8, 2025 at 4:35 PM
sownow.bsky.social
On this day in, 1933, U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt introduced the Civil Works Administration. It was meant to create jobs at the depth of the great depression. In five months, the Civil Works Administration put more than four million unemployed Americans back to work.
#History #OTD #Labor
Photo of the New York Times on November 9, 1933, with the headline: "4,000,000 Idle to Be Hired; Works Plan Bars 'Charity'"
November 8, 2025 at 4:25 PM
sownow.bsky.social
On this day in 1892, Black and white union members in New Orleans went on strike, together. This was a first in the U.S. The businesses facing the strike tried to split the workers by skin tone.
#History #OTD #Labor
Negotiators for the employers said they’d make a deal with the white workers, but not the workers of color. But the workers remained united and within nine days, won nearly all their demands. A black-and-white poster commemorating the 1892 desegregated labor strike in New Orleans. Artist: Henry Lipkis Source: Paper Monuments
November 8, 2025 at 4:04 PM
sownow.bsky.social
On this day in 1837, Mary Lyon established the Mount Holyoke Female Seminary, which is now Mount Holyoke College.
#History #OTD
This was the culmination of years of work, drawing on Lyon’s experience as a teacher and then a fundraiser and director at the Wheaton Female Seminary, now Wheaton College. At Mt. Holyoke, Lyon served as principal or president of the school. She combined rigorous academics with moral purpose. And, perhaps most importantly, kept the cost low for women who attended the school. A painted portrait of Mary Lyon, 1832 Source: Wikipedia
November 8, 2025 at 3:56 PM
sownow.bsky.social
“I wish I had a river I could skate away on.”
-Canadian singer-songwriter, guitarist, visual artist, and voice of generations, Joni Mitchell was born on this day in 1943. She has released around 20 albums, won more awards than I can list here, and influenced millions.
#MusicSky #Joni #BOTD
A b/w photo portrait of Joni Mitchell Photo credit: Jack Robinson Image source: Photos.com
November 7, 2025 at 10:36 PM