Published on Oct. 14, 2016

On October 20th, to help celebrate the National Day of Writing, we will have a venue in the Student Union from 10am-2pm! At this venue, we’ll celebrate writing at Mizzou with events such as: Pizza for a Poem, Photo Collage of MU Writers, Writing Marathons, and more!

Writing Marathons are a simple and fun way to encourage writers to explore the social aspects of writing while getting out and being inspired by the environment around them. There are three steps to a Writing Marathon:

1. Walk

2. Write

3. Share

As a group, participants begin in a location and walk together to a predetermined location. Then, for a certain amount of time (maybe up to 5 minutes), each person writes on a project of their choice or a given prompt. Finally, after each writing session, participants are invited to share the work they have done during that stop. Once the sharing phase has ended, the leader begins the process again by walking the group to another location where another writing session takes place.

It’s fun, productive, and a highly public way to celebrate writing in its myriad of forms here at Mizzou!

Please feel free to send your students to our celebration or bring your class! If you’d like to arrange your own writing marathon for your class, please contact Amy Lannin (lannina@missouri.edu).  We can lead your class on a writing marathon for a specified length of time and to destinations you request (availability will be determined on number of requests).