Groundhog Day: When a Story Overwrote a Tradition
August 31, 2026
The forecast is worthless and the tradition is a century old. Then a film came out and the phrase stopped meaning the custom entirely, which almost never happens.
Tag: February
Writing and book holidays observed in February, as winter deepens. Every literary celebration, author day, and reading observance falling in February, each marked with an essay.
FebruaryPresidents Day: The Name Nobody Made Official
August 31, 2026
Federal law still calls the third Monday of February Washington's Birthday. The popular name spread anyway, and turned a day about a person into a day about an office.
FebruaryWashington’s Birthday: The Man Who Gave It Back Twice
August 31, 2026
Washington was not the cleverest man in any room he entered. What he had was rarer: he could be trusted with power, and twice he handed it back when nobody could have made him.
FebruaryLincoln’s Birthday: The Hardest Job Anybody Has Held
August 31, 2026
Lincoln had about a year of formal schooling and taught himself everything else. Then he was handed a fracturing country, and he held it together without helping himself to the power the emergency offered.
FebruaryRedneck Christmas: What Fans Call the Daytona 500
August 31, 2026
The Daytona 500 has an official name, a sanctioning body and a trophy. It also has names nobody printed on anything, and those are the ones worth listening to.
FebruaryCharles Dickens Day: I Hated the Book and Watch Every Adaptation
June 14, 2026
Dickens gave us A Christmas Carol, Oliver Twist, and the word Dickensian. I was forced to read him in school and hated it, and yet I watch every adaptation. A look at the gap between assigned reading and real love.
FebruaryJules Verne Day: The Father of Science Fiction, Reimagined From the Inside
June 14, 2026
Jules Verne imagined submarines and space travel before either existed and is the second most translated author in history. On his birthday, the father of science fiction, reimagined from the inside.
FebruaryPresidents’ Day
June 14, 2026
Presidents' Day is the third Monday in February. The presidents we remember could write, and the words outlasted the terms. Why it still matters.
FebruaryValentine’s Day
June 14, 2026
Valentine's Day is February 14. Why the love letter is a lost art, why writing about love is so hard, and how to say it in your own words instead of a card's.
FebruaryWorld Read Aloud Day
June 14, 2026
World Read Aloud Day is the first Wednesday in February. From bedtime stories to critique groups, why reading aloud is the best editing tool a writer has.