My work project taking full swing -- National Gallery of Writing

One of my most recent work projects, and by far the most innovative and most development for our office, is really taking swing. What's awesome is that it's put on by NCTE -- the National Council of Teachers of English -- of which I happen to be a member (and my office is paying for my membership renewal-- booyah!).

The National Gallery of Writing is a website (http://galleryofwriting.org) "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] they have written that is important to them. The Gallery accommodates any composition format — from word processing to photography, audio recording to text messages — and all types of writing — from letters to lists, memoirs to memos.... The National Gallery of Writing is open for submissions and will be open for viewing/reading from the National Day on Writing (October 20, 2009) through June 1, 2010. The Gallery will provide a lively reading experience and an opportunity for writers to share their craft and find a broad and diverse audience."

NCTE is also working to have October 20th be officially recognized as the National Day on Writing. The Resolution for a National Day on Writing has been introduced in the House of Representatives by Congresswoman Dina Titus (D-NV) and by its 27 cosponsors. House Resolution 524 (H.Res.524) has been referred to the House Committee on Education and Labor for review. Urge your representative to vote yes!

What's exciting for me is that this combines my previous writerly life (as a student) with my current job. We're using the tools for our submission database (which we typically use for call for proposals for our conference events, and for grant submissions for a few other clients). And we got to meet our clients for this project while in DC at the National Educational Computing Conference which we help put on.

So, hey, support it! Anyone can submit his/her writing! Or start your own gallery and rally some writers to submit to a collection that you can manage! You know you want to...