Thanks to the work of Kathleen Yancey of the Department of English and FSU alumna Rep. Dina Titus, a Democrat representing Nevada, the nation celebrated its first “National Day on Writing” on October 20, 2009.

Yancey, as immediate past president of the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE), was instrumental in the creation of the event, and Titus, who received her Ph.D. in political science from Florida State, co-sponsored a Congressional resolution marking the day. The day’s lasting legacy and signature feature is the “National Gallery of Writing,” a digital archive of all kinds of writing from all kinds of people. The entries include stories, letters, essays, e-mail, recipes, blogs, poems, podcasts, journal entries, as well as audio, video, and artwork. According to the gallery’s website, the entries can come from “mothers, bus drivers, fathers, veterans, nurses, firefighters, sanitation workers, stockbrokers” in addition to students, professors, and professional writers.

Yancey is interim chair of the English Department and Kellogg W. Hunt Professor of English. In 2010, she will become the new editor of College Composition and Communication, making Florida State home to the nation’s premier journal for research in rhetoric and composition. In celebration of writers at Florida State, the English Department established its own niche in the larger gallery. To view those works, go to http://www.galleryofwriting.org/galleries/239913