Greeting Card Campaign: 11-1 Author's Day

Click here to download your Author's Day card for free.

It's Nov 1st - Author's Day.  Author's Day was first proclaimed and adopted by the General Federation of Women’s Clubs in 1929. The idea came from Nellie Verne Burt McPherson, president of the Bement, Illinois Women's Club in 1928. McPherson, a teacher was recuperating in a hospital, when she wrote a fan letter to fiction writer Irving Bacheller, telling him how much she had enjoyed his story, "Eben Holden's Last Day A'Fishin." The author sent her an autographed copy of one of his stories. To thank him, McPherson submitted the idea for National Author's Day to the General Federation of Women's Clubs. The GFWC liked the idea and set aside November 1 as Author's day to honor American writers and their contributions to literature. 

Later, in 1949 the U.S. Department of Commerce followed suit and recognized November 1 as National Author's Day.  Nellie's granddaughter, Sue Cole took over responsibility for promoting Author's Day after her grandmother's death in 1968. Mrs. cole suggests flying the American Flag in honor of American authors on November 1 as away to, as she puts it, "brighten up the sometimes lonely business of being a writer."

To celebrate Author's Day, we suggest you author an Author's Day greeting card to your beloved. We've done most of the work for you. Just click on the caption below the picture of the famous authors above. The link will take you to a pdf file in Google Docs. Remember, instead of printing from Google Docs, click on "File" in the upper left corner, then select "Download" and copy the file to your own computer.  Open it with Adobe PDF Reader or whatever PDF reader you use and print the card from there. For some reason Google Docs doesn't handle fonts well, even though they are supposed to be embedded in the PDF document itself.

This is a top fold card, so when it prints, be sure to tell your printer it's in "portrait" format so you get the whole file. Flip it on the short side to print double-sided. This also flips the inside upside down from the outside when you print in portrait mode, so that, when you fold it over, the inside comes out right side up.  If you're confused, I encourage you to give it a try with a practice sheet.

Then start on a novel of your own. November 1 also is the kickoff of National Novel Writing Month. The goal?  To write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days.  That's 1667 words a day or thereabouts so you'd better get rolling. Good luck becoming another great American author.

© 2013 by Tom King