National Author’s Day: Celebrating the People Behind the Stories We Love

For readers across Bristol, Kingsport, Johnson City, and the surrounding communities, today offers an opportunity to celebrate favorite writers—and discover an author closer to home.

For readers across Bristol, Kingsport, Johnson City, and the surrounding communities, today offers an opportunity to celebrate favorite writers—and discover an author closer to home.

The observance grew from one reader’s appreciation. According to Johns Hopkins University Press, Nellie Verne Burt McPherson wrote to author Irving Bacheller to express her admiration for his work. After receiving an autographed book in return, she became an advocate for recognizing authors, promoting the idea of a dedicated day in 1928. The U.S. Department of Commerce recognized the observance in 1949.

That beginning captures something familiar to anyone who has ever loved a book: a story can create a connection between people who have never met.

Perhaps a novel kept you company during a difficult season. A children’s book may have become part of your family’s bedtime routine. A memoir might have helped you understand an experience far removed from your own. Sometimes, a single sentence stays with us long after we have forgotten the details of the plot.

Authors give us entertainment, but they also give us language for things we struggle to express ourselves.

Their work asks for patience. A finished book may hold hundreds of decisions about character, structure, research, dialogue, and what to leave out. Writers often work around jobs, family responsibilities, and the uncertainty of whether their manuscript will ever find an audience.

Today is a chance to acknowledge that effort, including the work of authors whose names have yet to reach a bestseller list.

Here in Northeast Tennessee and Southwest Virginia, the idea of storytelling feels especially close to home. Think of the memories shared around a kitchen table, the family history passed from one generation to the next, or the familiar place that looks different when someone explains what happened there years ago.

Writers can give those memories a lasting home.

A local history book might preserve details that would otherwise disappear. A memoir can record a family’s journey. A novel can capture the feeling of growing up in a small town, even when its characters and setting are imagined. A children’s story can help a young reader recognize something of their own life.

Supporting authors who write about our region—and authors who live here while imagining entirely different worlds—helps make room for a wider range of voices.

That support can begin with a simple choice: read something new.

Ask a librarian or bookseller for a recommendation from a local or regional author. Choose a book outside your usual genre. Pick up the collection of poetry you have been meaning to try, or finally open the novel a friend keeps recommending.

When a book leaves an impression, tell someone. A thoughtful recommendation gives another reader a place to start. An honest review can help people decide whether a book interests them. Attending an author talk or book signing offers a chance to hear about the work directly from its creator.

Even a brief message of appreciation can matter. Tell an author which character you remember, which passage made you laugh, or why you bought their book for someone you love.

For families, today can also become an invitation to create. Read together, talk about a favorite story, and encourage children to invent one of their own. A few handwritten pages and a homemade cover are enough to begin.

And for anyone quietly carrying an idea for a book, National Author’s Day offers a gentle nudge. You do not need to have every chapter planned before writing the first paragraph. Start with the memory, character, or question that keeps returning to you.

At Folks and Facts, we celebrate the people who help us notice more, imagine more, and remember what matters. To the established authors, first-time writers, independent publishers, and storytellers still working toward their first finished manuscript: congratulations, and thank you for sharing your words.