The Columbian: Gallery of Writing celebrates the everyday written word

By TJ Guese, special contributor

Columbia College students, faculty and staff have the opportunity to participate in a national project designed to get people writing. Lynda Dunham, director of the Seabrook Writing Center, says the center is participating in a nationwide project created by the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE).

The NCTE has been lobbying Congress to declare Oct. 20, 2009 the National Day on Writing. To celebrate this day, the NCTE has created the National Gallery of Writing, a Web site designed to display written works. “Whether we call it texting, IMing, jotting a note, writing a letter, posting an e-mail, blogging, making a video, building an electronic presentation, composing a memo, keeping a diary, or just pulling together a report, Americans are writing like never before,” says the NCTE.

Any type of writing can be submitted to the gallery. The NCTE says the purpose of the gallery is to collect the everyday writing of Americans in order to gain an understanding of what is important to writers as well as when writing matters. Dunham says submissions could be research papers, poems, short stories or even “a note from a mother to her daughter saying how much she loves her.”

To encourage participation at Columbia College, the Writing Center and Ivy Review are offering a reward of candy upon proof of submission to the gallery. In addition, everyone who submits a work to the gallery will be entered into a drawing for a free pass to RagTag Theater. The Writing Center will accept the printed “submission accepted” page as proof of participation in its offices at 212 Missouri Hall.

Tram Nguyen, a freshman from Vietnam, submitted to the National Day of Writing. She put together a video story about Shane Filan, a singer with the Irish pop group Westlife. “I put a lot of effort into the video. [Making a video] made it more fun and was a different approach to writing,” says Nguyen.

To submit a written work to the National Gallery of Writing, visit galleryofwriting.org. Submissions will be accepted until June 10, 2010. The gallery will remain in place until June 30, 2010.