The official National Day on Writing was Saturday, October 20, but Madonna celebrated the event on Thursday, October 18. Carol Vandenberg of the Library and I combined this event with the Halloween Research/Write-a-thon, which has been a staple of Take 5 entertainment since 2009.
Supported by our capable librarians (which included Lauren Ziolkowski) and tutors, Carol and I provided light-hearted, Halloween-ish prompts for participants to write responses to. Sarah Kosel, one of the tutors, taped construction paper on Take 5 windows for “round-robin” stories. She started each story, and participants were invited to add a sentence or two to further develop these spooky tales.
Other tutors who helped out were Lawren Dame, Kayla Daugherty, Hannah Faber, Clarissa Powaser, Sara Sabadosa, and LaMonica Williams.
From 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., we collared students, staff, and a few faculty members to participate by getting help with research or writing, reading something aloud, adding to one of the “round-robin” stories, or writing a response to one of our prompts. Those who got involved put their name and phone number in a raffle, and we drew names at random intervals. Based on the number of names in our raffle, at least 75 members of the Madonna community contributed something for the National Day on Writing.
In preparation, we had purchased plenty of candy and Dollar Store treasures such as inflatable spiders, glow-in-the-dark skeletons, severed hands and feet (fake), and a spider-laden boa. Our grand prize was a $25 gift certificate for Barnes & Noble. Connie Tingson-Gatuz’s office helped subsidize the costs.
Desmond Thompson, a Madonna freshman majoring in communication, won the grand prize.
Following are the “round-robin” stories (formerly called “traveling stories) and the responses to some of our prompts:
Frances FitzGerald is MU's Writing Center Coordinator
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