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.
AmericaMorrison spent nearly twenty years as a Random House editor building a canon of Black American writing, wrote her first novel at thirty-nine around a full-time job and two children, won the Nobel, and made one decision about audience that…
FebruaryThe 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.
FebruaryFederal 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 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 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.
ChristmasThe 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.
AdaptationDickens 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 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 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 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.
Critique GroupsWorld 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.
Professional ghostwriting for executives, founders, coaches, and authors who want to get the book done right. 113+ books authored. 54+ ghostwritten for clients.
Ready to discuss your book?
BOOK YOUR PRIVATE CONSULTATIONNo pitch. No pressure.
© 2026 Richard Lowe. The Writing King. All rights reserved.
