Every October 20th, the National Council of Teachers of English holds a National Day on Writing. It is a celebration of writing in all media: film, novels, short fiction, graphic, and so on. As a publisher, editor, and writer, I heartily endorse this day! One goal of the NDoW is to get communities involved in writing.
Five years ago, Lexington participated by holding a “Longest Short Story” event. They asked legendary Kentucky author Ed Mcclanahan to provide the first line of the city’s shared short story.
This year, they asked me!
The line I came up with: A little girl, tears streaking down her face, pointed into the dark maw of the ‘Centrepoint pit’.
At 12 different locations throughout the city, anybody can sit down and add a sentence or paragraph to the story. The first time they did this, they ended up with almost 100 yards of story! I really want to beat that mark this year.
(For reference, Centrepoint pit is a block sized pit in downtown Lexington…I would estimate 20-30 feet deep. It used to be beautiful green space. For nearly a decade there have been plans to develop a large hotel on the site…but as you can see in the webcam linked below nothing but a muddy pit has been built thus far.)
http://www.thewebbcompanies.com/centrepointecam
If you would like to participate, here is the flyer with all the information. Linked here is the PDF edition.
