The National Council of Teachers of English is sponsoring the National Day on Writing, today, October 20. It is not a Hallmark-card holiday in which you buy your writing mentor cupcakes–though I think that’s an excellent idea and should be explored–but rather a celebration of writing in all its forms. The website offers celebrities speaking about writing, and in this glorious world by “celebrities” they mean not the Jonas Brothers, but writing luminaries like Laurie Halse Anderson, James Cross Giblin, Katherine Patterson. You and yours can also submit to the Gallery of Writing. Should we do a Hamline local gallery?

I stopped to question why the NDOW prepositional subcommittee chose on. Yes, the appropriate preposition doesn’t announce itself–you can quickly get rid of amongst and betwixt, but why on as opposed to, say, of or for?
On implies something more philosophical, more inquisitive than the functional of or for. On a day of we do. On a day on we meditate, we consider, we discuss. And there’s something contemplative about the project; as the site says:

By collecting a cross-section of everyday writing through a National Gallery of Writing, we will better understand what matters to writers today—and when writing really counts. Understanding who writes, when, how, to whom, and for what purposes will lead to production of improved resources for writers, better strategies to nurture and celebrate writers, and improved policy to support writing.

That’s a project we can all support. Write on.