The creator of a good story, writer William Sydney Porter (1862–1910), was born on this day in Greensboro, North Carolina. Best known by his pen name O. Henry, he became the master of the American short story. His early jobs—as a pharmacist, ranch hand, and bank teller—offered rich material for his stories of working-class lives.

"A good story is like a bitter pill, with the sugar coating inside of it," he once said. That was his magic: revealing human truths with humor, heartache, and unexpected twists.

O. Henry's tales are compact gems. With swift introductions and tightly constructed plots, he moved his characters briskly toward memorable endings—often ironic, always satisfying. His best-known story, The Gift of the Magi, celebrates love and giving. Della and Jim sacrifice their most cherished possessions to surprise one another—only to discover that love, not gifts, was the real treasure all along.

Pulitzer Prize winner William Saroyan once wrote, “The people of America loved O. Henry... He was a nobody, but he was a nobody who also was a somebody—everybody’s somebody.”

Over his lifetime, O. Henry wrote more than 300 short stories. His enduring legacy is celebrated annually through the prestigious O. Henry Awards, honoring the best short fiction published in North America. Past winners include William Faulkner, Eudora Welty, and Carson McCullers.

His life was filled with surprises, his writing a blend of living truths and tender irony. What he offered wasn’t just storytelling—it was soul-touching. He gave readers a warm tapestry of the human heart, quietly stitched with compassion and grace.