October 20, 2009 was the National Day on Writing!

And the day the National Gallery of Writing— “a virtual space—a website—where people who perhaps have never thought of themselves as writers—mothers, bus drivers, fathers, veterans, nurses, firefighters, sanitation workers, stockbrokers—select and post writing that is important to them,”—officially opened.

“Writing is a daily practice for millions of Americans, but few notice how integral writing has become to daily life in the 21st century,” notes the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) who established the National Gallery of Writing in an effort to “draw attention to the remarkable variety of writing we engage in and help make writers from all walks of life aware of their craft.”

The National Gallery of Writing includes three types of display spaces where writing can be found:

1. The Gallery of the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) represents a broad cross-section of writing hosted by the National Council of Teachers of English.

2. National Partner Galleries include writing that corresponds to a theme or purpose identified by National Partners participating in this initiative.

3. Local Partner Galleries include works from writers in a classroom, school, club, workplace, city, or other local entity.

Add your writing to the Gallery Collection:

Writers who “would like to share their craft and find a broad and diverse audience” are encouraged to submit their writing for inclusion in the Gallery. Guidelines are posted on the website: National Gallery of Writing website

The National Gallery of Writing is open for submissions/viewing/reading through June 30, 2010.

Make a wish/Have a ball/Dream a dream/Be it all…/If you want it, you can get it/But to get it, you’ve got to want it/Anything you want to try…../Just let go and you’ll fly highhhhhhhh…/And Make a Wish!*

I’m making a wish. I am wishing, dreaming, hoping someone, or a lot of someones, realize how gray our world will be without rainbows—especially this rainbow, the Reading Rainbow…

On August 28th Reading Rainbow died. After 26 years of celebrating books Reading Rainbow is off the air.

Why in the world is Reading Rainbow—a program celebrating books and reading and ideas–going off the air?

“Because no one — not the station, not PBS, not the Corporation for Public Broadcasting — will put up the several hundred thousand dollars needed to renew the show’s broadcast rights,” explained, John Grant, who is in charge of content at Reading Rainbow’s home station.

What’s a few hundred thousand dollars in the grand scheme of things? Consider how much more than that we, the United States of America, spend on other things—war, for instance–wars against things like drugs, poverty, pollution, people…oh yeah, and illiteracy.

Grant noted that while the decision to end Reading Rainbow had to do with funding cuts to PBS, it “can also be traced back to a philosophical change about TV and reading. He says the change started with the Department of Education under the Bush administration, which wanted to see a much heavier focus on things like phonics and spelling, the basic tools of reading”….And PBS and CPB and the Department of Education want to put funding toward programming that would teach kids how to read. They think “teaching the mechanics of reading should be the network’s priority.”

Silly me, I thought that was what teachers and parents were supposed to do…maybe that’s why funding for education is not of highest propriety…why pay teachers? Heck, let’s let TV teach our children “the mechanics of reading.”

Reading Rainbow is not and has never been about teaching children to read. Reading Rainbow does something more…something huge: “Reading Rainbow” Grant notes, “taught kids why to read, you know, the love of reading, encouraged kids to pick up a book and to read.”

We don’t seem to mind spending heaps of money to bully people into doing the “right thing.” So why not peel off some good old American greenbacks to do a really right thing: Bring back Reading Rainbow.

Better yet, skip PBS. PBS will go on to create other, wonderful programs—that’s what PBS does, provide “quality” programming for television viewers, programs like Sesame Street and Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, the only programs with longer runs on PBS than Reading Rainbow.

Let’s turn instead to those “for profit” TV program producers, the one who bring us “quality” TV shows packed with plenty worth learning to love: violence, rage, anger, slaughter, decapitation, blood, cussing, crime, crime, crime…

ABC, NBC, FX, CBS, Fox, HBO…why don’t YOU bring back Reading Rainbow?

Come on, use a couple of hundred thousand of those dollars you charge sponsors to air commercials for products they want us to buy—and buy us a program we want to watch—and want our children to watch. One that celebrates reading and imagination.

Butterfly in the sky/ I can go twice as high/Take a look/ it’s in a book/ — Reading Rainbow…

For the full NPR story go to: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=112312561

*Theme from “Make a Wish” with Tom Chapin, the 70′s morning show that fostered my grand ideas.)

I read somewhere that Ernest Hemingway wrote 500 words day in and day out, “wife in and wife out.”  For years I have resisted imposing that kind of structure on myself. There have always been enough “have tos” and “must dos” in my life, I didn’t feel I needed anymore. Forcing myself to write would take away the joy and leave me with just a job. But now I am rethinking my position.

Talking Books by James Carter, is a collection of interviews with mostly British contemporary children’s writers.”  The writers discuss their  journey to becoming authors including schooling, favorite books, writing habits, family life, etc. etc. I keep the book in an orange metal magazine rack in the loo, along with other pick-up-and-put-down periodicals. One of my favorite interviews in the book is with Phillip Pullman. Each morning, Pullman he goes down to cluttered, filthy, messy garden shed “and generally write[s] three pages by lunchtime, always by hand.” Pullman is very specific about the type of paper he writes on–never recycled because it’s “too gritty and full of bits of twig and stuff.”  He selects a type of paper for “each particular book and it’s got to be used for only that book and nothing else.” He color codes the corner of each piece of paper: Subtle Knife’s color was yellow; Northern Lights color was indigo.

John Cheever, the short story master, used to go downstairs to the boiler room of his apartment building, take off and put back on his suit and then return to his apartment, thus beginning his writing day. (I also recall reading that he wrote naked in the boiler room of his building.) I prefer the first scenario.

Cheerer’s and Pullman’s routines sound OCD, Hemingway’s less so, until you consider that along with “wife in and wife out” he purportedly kept this 500 word commitment war in and war out, safaring, fishing, binging whatever. I prefer to think of it as ritualistic–like baseball players who don’t change their socks during a winning streak or my daughter who kisses her fingers and touches the ceiling of the car whenever she goes through a yellow light–mindful.

“As a writer,” Pullman says, “you have to write whether you’ve got ideas or not, whether or not you’re feeling inspired. He notes that people who do not write talk “as if it all depended on inspiration” and the way they say it makes it seem as though they too could be writers if only this “mysterious inspiration” would strike them.  “The trick is to write just as well when you’re not feeling inspired as when you are” –Do the Hemingway.

Pullman believes that success in writing is due to three things: “talent, hard work and luck” and the “only one you have any control over is the hard work” –Do the Hemingway.

So I am rethinking my writing life. Maybe these rituals are good things. I ritualistically brush my teeth everyday–and put the cap back on; I eat breakfast, make coffee, make phone calls first thing every morning–day in and day out.  Committing to write a certain number of words, pages, minutes could be a good for my writing life.  And on some days, if I’m lucky, if I work hard–Doing the Hemingway– inspiration will strike.