Happy 8th Birthday Wannaskan Almanac

 

   On a cold and snowy New Year’s Eve eight years ago I was feeling morose. My favorite radio program, The Writer’s Almanac, had just been blown off the airwaves by the whirlwind known as MeToo. It was both creative destruction and a godsend. 

   As I wandered among the guests at our New Year’s Eve party, an idea began to form in my brain. I plied my friends with food and drink. Then at the right moment I approached them one by one and explained my plan. I was going to start a daily blog that would fill the gap left by the loss of The Writer’s Almanac. 

   Many of my friends are writers and my judicious flattery convinced them writing a post one day a week on the model of The Writer's Almanac would be fun. Perhaps Minnesota Public Radio would pick us up. We’d get a couple of their staff to do research and editing. There could be a book deal, royalties, and so forth.

   When reality hit after a few months, several of the writers made noises about having other projects that needed their attention. That was a low point for the Wannaskan Almanac. If the writers had ever shared their concerns with each other there might have been a mass exodus. Fortunately, that never happened. After the first year, momentum took over. 

   In the beginning some of the writers used the format of the cancelled Writer's Almanac. Eight years later only Joe - Wednesday's Child has maintained a semblance of the original Almanac: a couple of lists of  'on this date' people and events, interesting facts, a poem or two, all focusing on the wonderful world of words. Learn something new today is his mantra. Jackpine Savage on Mondays is all about poetry. She has introduced readers to numerous poets and is currently leading us into dark corridors of her own epic adventure where the question is: what is real?

   The other writers, teapoetry on alternating Mondays, WannaskaWriter on Thursday, Chairman Joe on Fridays, and Kim Hruba on Saturday, write about whatever strikes their fancy. Sunday is the squibs of Chairman Joe along with the news from Palmville Township. And finally there's Tuesdays with Mr. Hot Coco. It's hard to pin Mr. Hot Coco down.  He's like a cartoonist who writes out his ideas instead of drawing them. He teaches at a middle school in Kansas. Maybe that explains the fun on Tuesdays.

   Eight years is an eon in blog time. Maybe the writers keep on writing to make sure they get an invitation to the annual New Year's Eve party.  This year, for the first time in Wannaskan Almanac's history, all eight writers were present at the same time. In the group picture below, no one told us where to stand.  By some miracle we sorted ourselves chronologically. It was probably by the same power that keeps us blogging. Good work guys! See you next year and every morning in between.

 

(Front) teapoetry, Jack Pine Savage, Mr. Hot Coco, 
(Back) Joe-Wednesday's Child, WannaskaWriter, Chairman Joe, Antonin (guest writer) Kim Hruba