A-State to hold 13th Celebration of National Day on Writing as ‘Movable Feast’
JONESBORO – The Department of English, Philosophy and World Languages, the Arkansas State University Writing Center, and KASU Radio invite everyone to join in their two-day celebration of the National Council of Teachers of English’s National Day on Writing, Oct. 20-21.
The National Day on Writing (NDoW) is an annual event created by the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) “to draw attention to the remarkable variety of writing Americans engage in and to help make writers from all walks of life aware of their craft,” says the NCTE website. Since 2012, A-State’s Department of English, Philosophy, and World Languages has collaborated annually with various departments, on-campus organizations, and local businesses to celebrate NDoW on or around Oct. 20.
“The NDoW committee invites Red Wolves to nourish their creativity by participating in our ‘Moveable Feast,’” said Dr. Kerri Bennett, A-State National Day on Writing Planning Committee co-chair. “This year’s theme is meant to provide participants with a wide variety of bite-sized writing opportunities. Whether you’re into writing poetry, flash fiction, or memoir, you’ll find a topic to fit your tastes. We hope that many of the writers whose creative appetites are whet with these prompts create finished pieces because that’s what the National Day on Writing is all about — encouraging everyone to write,” Bennett added.
With this year’s “Moveable Feast” theme, the committee has planned various writing opportunities that are meant to “Nourish Writers’ Creativity.” On Monday and Tuesday, Oct. 20-21, participants may join the #WhyIWrite post-campaign by posting sticky notes that tell their reason for writing on the glass walls of both the Writing Center and the fourth-floor seminar room in HSS.
From 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. Monday, Oct. 20, and 11 a.m. to 1 pm. Tuesday, Oct. 21, the Writing Center and the Tributary, A-State’s student literary magazine, will host a buffet of writing topics in front of the HSS building. Students who visit will be given their choice of writing prompts to answer including poetry, flash fiction, two-sentence stories, and even six-word stories.
Those who wish to do so can then submit the resulting creative works for publication in the Tributary as well as the ARCH, A-State's Research and Creativity Hub, an exciting new digital archive in the Dean B. Ellis Library’s collection. The committee will present various prompts to Composition I and Composition II students so that they can enjoy the “feast” from the comfort of their classrooms.
Chase Weller, Planning Committee co-chair, said, “We are excited about this year’s celebration, and we hope that the variety of writing opportunities gives students a chance to find something they really resonate with. And this year, we’re making it easier than ever because we’re coming to students in their composition classrooms! Giving students the chance to interact with all different kinds of writing is so valuable. Students might not realize it, but events like this can spark lifelong hobbies, or the start of a career, even, and that really captures the ethos of National Day on Writing. With this event, not only are we offering encouragement to write, but we also hope that these pieces, big or small, inspire students to keep writing whenever they get that flash of inspiration.”
A-State’s history of celebrating NDoW began when Bennett and Dr. Dixie Keyes, Teacher Education, held a small event at the Dean B. Ellis Library on the afternoon of October 20, 2012. They placed a chalkboard in one of the open study spaces on which they wrote “Before I die…” and asked passersby to finish the statement. With the support of more faculty and often other departments, such as the Department of Art + Design and KASU, the annual event has grown into a multi-event celebration, which often involves the #WhyIWrite social media campaign that NCTE promotes each year as well as outdoor events on the Humanities and Social Sciences Building porch.
