The other day, we were looking at Library Booklists’ invaluable list of authors’ birthdays, and we noticed something: over a roughly 75-year period, a whole lot of critically important writers were born on the 18th of February. Here are some names: Toni Morrison. Sholem Aleichem. Audre Lorde. Wallace Stegner. Helen Gurley Brown. Nikos Kazantzakis. There are winners of major literary awards and groundbreaking figures in there–essential writers all. So, if you’re a writer and your birthday’s today: consider that there’s a pretty solid precedent going on.