Writing is Everywhere, The Museum of Everyday Writing Showcases That

by Giana Nardelli

In the 21st century, writing occurs on more diverse mediums than it ever has before.

Writing occurs all around us: someone typing lecture notes on a laptop during class, a club using
chalk to advertise their event on the sidewalk, or signing your name in the frosted glass at a
supermarket.

The Museum of Everyday Writing’s purpose is to celebrate that.

FSU’s Rhetoric and Composition Program’s collection showcases writing from nonacademic and
nonprofessional spaces. The museum itself is free to access and is entirely online – anyone is
welcome to submit a piece of writing for museum’s staff to assess.

Jacyln Fiscus-Cannaday, an assistant professor in the Rhetoric and Composition program, is the
faculty administrator for the Museum of Everyday Writing. She has supervised the Museum for
three years and explains that she finds it fascinating how many of this generation’s writers don’t
see themselves as writers.

“A lot of times, when we talk to students, they’d say ‘Oh, I’m not a writer’ but are actually very
active on social media, or they’re active in journaling, or texting,” Fiscus-Cannaday says. “All of
that counts as everyday writing.”

The aim of the museum is to broaden people’s perspectives on what can be considered writing.

“Everyday writing is often considered to be mundane, invisible, and ephemeral, though these
texts are often valuable to their writers and readers,” its About page reads, “this definition shapes
the artifacts we curate and the ways in which we categorize these artifacts. Though we ascribe to
a particular definition of everyday writing, we encourage you to play with our definition, testing
it against your own understanding of everyday writing and the artifacts in this museum.”

Run by undergraduate interns and overseen by graduate students, the Museum of Everyday
Writing is always open for submissions through their website’s portal. The staff is interested in
writing that comes with meaning, as expressed on the website: “We want to see writing that has a
story behind it. This might be a family recipe book, a note on the wall that you found interesting,
a tattoo you have, and so on.”

Fiscus-Cannaday states that the job that museum’s interns do is a very important one among
the Museum of Everyday Writing, and they “have opportunities to create an exhibit of
something they feel like they, or the university, hasn’t seen yet or something they want to
expand upon.”

The interns organize submissions into artifacts to be published on the website, as well as
create projects and perform research through curated exhibits.

One artifact on display for the Museum of Everyday Writing is “Get In Loser,” uploaded by an
anonymous photographer in February 2023. The image is of a pink bumper sticker that reads
“Get In Loser…”, referencing a quote from the 2004 film Mean Girls. The contributor described
the sticker as “humorous, and allows others to know that this driver likes the movie Mean Girls,
while also insinuating that they are probably going shopping. Because the complete phrase from
the movie is ‘Get in loser we're going shopping.’”

Ashley Rea’s exhibit, “Tattoos: Remediation & Inked Identity,” discuss how ink on skin is a
medium that can showcase the connection between personal meanings behind art and words as
well as how tattoos “exist within the public sphere.”

Many inked individuals share their stories within the exhibit, and Rea provides to the audience a
gallery of not only tattoos but an insightful history of the practice as well.

Whether the significance behind a piece of writing is sentimental, nostalgic, or just something
considered “cool”, the museum presents an opportunity to recognize the writing that surrounds
us in our everyday lives.

And for FSU students interested in working with the museum, contact Dr. Jaclyn Fiscus-
Cannaday (jfiscus@fsu.edu).

For more information on the Museum of Everyday Writing, visit

https://museumofeverydaywriting.omeka.net/.

Giana Nardelli is an English major on the editing, writing, and media track, with a second
major in media/communication studies.

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