ObservanceMonday, November 1, 2027
National Author's Day
- Date
- Recurs
- Every year on November 1
- Category
- Books
National Author's Day is marked on November 1 as a day to thank the people who write books. Its own history is the part worth being careful about: a single founding story dominates search results for this day, and it could not be traced to any primary document, so this page does not repeat it as fact. What follows is the short, sourced version instead.
History
The origin of this observance is not well documented.
One account dominates: that Nellie Verne Burt McPherson, president of a women's club in Bement, Illinois, proposed the day in 1928 after an exchange of letters with the novelist Irving Bacheller; that a club resolution endorsing it followed in May 1929; and that the U.S. Department of Commerce gave the day official recognition in 1949. Every version of that story found while researching this page appears on daily-holiday aggregators, promotional blogs, or sites that cite no source at all — including one Illinois travel site that names the founder and the 1949 recognition but attributes neither to a document. The Library of Congress's digitized newspaper archive, which would be the natural place to check a 1929 club resolution or a 1949 federal action against the contemporaneous record, was unreachable when this page was written.
So the claim stays out. Not because it is necessarily wrong — the people and the books in it are real, and Irving Bacheller was a widely read American novelist — but because an unsourced founding date repeated by one more site is exactly how wrong founding dates become permanent. If the 1929 resolution or the 1949 recognition turns up in a primary document, this page will say so and name it.
What can be stated with a source is narrower, and answers the question most people actually arrive with. November 1 is not a federal holiday. The federal holidays are the ones established by 5 U.S.C. 6103 and published by the Office of Personnel Management, and that list — New Year's Day through Christmas Day, eleven days plus Inauguration Day in the years it falls — contains no November 1 observance. There is no day off, no closure, and no federal designation behind this one.
How to observe
Write to a living author about a specific passage. Most authors list a contact address, an agent, or a newsletter on their own site, and a note about the one paragraph that stayed with you is worth more to a working writer than a star rating. The founding story this page declines to assert is, at least, a story about someone doing exactly that.
Request a book rather than only borrowing one. Library acquisition budgets respond to patron requests, so asking your branch to order an author's next book does more for them than a renewal does.
Read someone from where you live. Nearly every state library and county historical society keeps a list of authors from the area, and the result is usually a writer you would never have found by browsing a bestseller table.
For older American writing, the Library of Congress publishes an alphabetical index of its digitized collections at https://www.loc.gov/collections/ — searchable, free, and full of material no commercial site has.
Frequently asked questions
When is National Author's Day?
November 1, every year. The date does not move.
Who founded National Author's Day?
Not established. A widely repeated account credits Nellie Verne Burt McPherson of Bement, Illinois, in 1928, with recognition following in 1949, but that story could not be traced to a primary document for this page, so it is not stated here as fact.
Is National Author's Day a federal holiday?
No. The federal holidays are those established by 5 U.S.C. 6103 and listed by the Office of Personnel Management, and no November 1 observance is among them. Nothing closes.
Why does this page say less about the day's history than other sites do?
Because the rest of what those sites say is unsourced. This site's rule is that a claim about an origin, a founder, or a date carries a source or does not run. A short honest page is the cost of that rule, and the reason to trust the longer ones elsewhere on this site.
When is National Author's Day?
| Year | Date | Day |
|---|---|---|
| 2027 | November 1 | Monday |
| 2028 | November 1 | Wednesday |
| 2029 | November 1 | Thursday |
| 2030 | November 1 | Friday |
| 2031 | November 1 | Saturday |
Sources
- U.S. Office of Personnel Management, Federal Holidays — https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/pay-leave/federal-holidays/ → the public holidays established by 5 U.S.C. 6103 and the names used for them; no November 1 observance appears on the list, so National Author's Day is not a federal holiday.
- Library of Congress, Search Collections — https://www.loc.gov/collections/ → the Library's alphabetical index of digitized collections, cited as a route for readers rather than for any claim about this observance.
- Note on the founding story and the omitted Timeline: the account naming Nellie Verne Burt McPherson, the Bement women's club, a May 1929 resolution, the General Federation of Women's Clubs, and a 1949 U.S. Department of Commerce recognition appears only on daily-holiday aggregators, promotional blogs, and an Illinois travel site that cites no source. Under this site's sourcing rule none of it is usable, so no founding claim is made and the Timeline field is deliberately empty rather than filled with unsourced dates. The Library of Congress Chronicling America newspaper archive returned server errors on every attempt while this page was written, so the contemporaneous record remains unchecked and this is worth revisiting.
Add to your calendarA calendar file for Apple Calendar, Google Calendar or Outlook. The event repeats every year. You can also subscribe to this observance or to the whole calendar.
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