The program's theme music is a version of the Swedish song "Ge mig en dag", performed by Richard Dworsky on the piano.

[2] Written by Betsy Allister, Joy Biles, Priscilla Kinter, Robert McGinley Myers, Heather McPherson, and Holly Vanderhaar, the program was engineered and edited by Thomas Scheuzger, Noah Smith, and Sam Hudson.

In 2005 the program was briefly canceled by Kentucky public radio station WUKY due to concerns about purportedly indecent content in some of the poems.

In November 2017, after allegations of inappropriate behavior by Keillor toward someone who worked for him on a freelance basis, Minnesota Public Radio terminated its contracts with him and his private media companies.

This effectively ended the distribution and broadcast of The Writer's Almanac on public radio, as well as rebroadcasts of Keillor's A Prairie Home Companion.