Taste of the blood upon his martyred lips, O pensioners, O demagogues & pay-men! This death was his belief though death is a stone. This man loved earth, not heaven, enough to die. The night wind blows upon the dreamer, bent Over words that are life's voluble utterance. — excerpt, "The Men That Are Falling" - Wallace Stevens

Happy Birthday Wallace, you salty old dog.

Wallace Stevens (October 2, 1879 – August 2, 1955) was an American Modernist poet. He was born in Reading, Pennsylvania, educated at Harvard and then New York Law School, and he spent most of his life working as an executive for an insurance company in Hartford, Connecticut. He won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for his Collected Poems in 1955.

Some of his best-known poems include "Anecdote of the Jar", "Disillusionment of Ten O'Clock", "The Emperor of Ice-Cream", "The Idea of Order at Key West", "Sunday Morning", "The Snow Man", and "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird."

The impossible could not have happened, therefore the impossible must be possible in spite of appearances. Agatha Christie

Happy Birthday Agatha!

The author of And Then There Were None was born on this day in 1890.

From Wikipedia: Dame Agatha Mary Clarissa Christie, DBE (née Miller; 15 September 1890 – 12 January 1976) was a British crime writer of novels, short stories, and plays. She also wrote romances under the name Mary Westmacott, but she is best remembered for her 66 detective novels and more than 15 short story collections, most of which revolve around the investigations of such characters as Hercule Poirot, Miss Jane Marple and Tommy and Tuppence.

Born to a wealthy upper middle-class family in Torquay, Devon, Christie served in a hospital during the First World War before settling into married life with her first child in London. Although initially unsuccessfull at getting her work published, in 1920, The Bodley Head press published her novel The Mysterious Affair at Styles, featuring the character of Poirot. This launched her literary career.

According to the Guinness Book of World Records, Christie is the best-selling novelist of all time. Her novels have sold roughly four billion copies, and her estate claims that her works rank third, after those of William Shakespeare and theBible, as the world's most widely published books.^[1] According to Index Translationum, Christie is the most translated individual author, and her books have been translated into at least 103 languages.^[2] And Then There Were None is Christie's best-selling novel with 100 million sales to date, making it the world's best-selling mystery ever, and one of the best-selling books of all time.^[3] In 1971, she was made a Dame by Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace.^[4]Christie's stage play The Mousetrap holds the record for the longest initial run: it opened at the Ambassadors Theatrein London on 25 November 1952 and as of 2012 is still running after more than 24,600 performances.^[5] In 1955, Christie was the first recipient of the Mystery Writers of America's highest honour, the Grand Master Award, and in the same year Witness for the Prosecution was given an Edgar Award by the MWA for Best Play. Many of her books andshort stories have been filmed, and many have been adapted for television, radio, video games and comics.

I would hurl words into this darkness and wait for an echo, and if an echo sounded, no matter how faintly, I would send other words to tell, to march, to fight, to create a sense of the hunger for life that gnaws in us all. Richard Wright

Happy Belated Birthday!

Richard Nathaniel Wright (September 4, 1908 – November 28, 1960) was an African-American author of sometimes controversial novels, short stories, poems, and non-fiction. Much of his literature concerns racial themes, especially those involving the plight of African-Americans during the late 19th to mid-20th centuries. His work helped redefine discussions of race relations in America in the mid-20th century.

Fantasy is hardly an escape from reality. It's a way of understanding it. - Lloyd Alexander

Happy Birthday Lloyd Alexander!

Lloyd Chudley Alexander (January 30, 1924 – May 17, 2007) was a widely influential American author of more than forty books, primarily fantasy novels for children and young adults. His most famous work is The Chronicles of Prydain, a series of five high fantasy novels whose conclusion, The High King, was awarded the 1969 Newbery Medal for excellence in American children's literature. He won National Book Awards for children's literature in 1971 and 1982.

Alexander was one creator of the children's literary magazine Cricket.