It's the birthday of novelist and poet Rosellen Brown, born in Philadelphia (1939). Her novels include Tender Mercies, Before and After, and Half a Heart.

Her family moved around a lot when she was a child, and Brown began reading Turgenev and Dostoevsky. She said, "I was nine when words began to serve their extraordinary purposes for me. I was lonely and they kept me company. They materialized whenever I called on them without an argument or a competitive leer."

She said, "I still write for the same reason I wrote when I was nine years old, to speak more perfectly than I really can to a listener more perfect than any I know."