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Writing Center Postcard Project

Inspired by PostSecret: www.postsecret.com

Purdue Writing Lab: The Writing on the Walls

Click on the postcard above to see a close-up of each panel.

I refuse to lose the feeling I get when I ride my bike.

I refuse to lose the feeling I get when I ride my bike.

TRANSCRIPTION: I refuse to lose the explosion my heart feels when I ride my bike to school. The only way to not lose it is to write of my ineffable experiences in the margins of my notebooks while my professors tell me

WHAT TO
HOW TO
WHY TO

W
R
I
T
E

The most therapeutic letters I write are the ones I'll never send.

I have written entire essays on Post-Its.

The boy I loved told me I was a poet and I believed him. When people ask me why I don't write poems any more I lie. It was because I fell in love and lost words (to his lies and to his fists).

when you wrote me into your story, skirt and all,i was excited. i wanted to kiss you, but instead i shut up and wrote stories about you, about us.

I still handwrite all my papers -- even the 40 page ones. (And I 50% of those I still use crayons for.)

I believe that GRAMMAR is the least IMPORTANT thing a kid can learn

TRANSCRIPTION: I believe that GRAMMAR is the least IMPORTANT thing a kid can learn
...and it breaks my heart that so many people act like it's the MOST.
Please do not learn to measure your self-worth in commas and split infinitives.

I didn't know "a lot" was two words until after college.

Soon I'll have a Ph.D. in English. Maybe then I'll have time to write my epic vampire novel.

There is no such thing as writer's block.

I did my best creative writing when I was 9.

TRUE CONFESSION: I like cheesy writing center logos.

I prefer to write in the all-together.

Writing is very difficult for me, yet is a crucial part of my professional life. I rewrite continually and my grad students are horrified that I mark up my papers with a bright red pen. Sometimes, when they know I am struggling with a piece of writing, our Writing Lab Tutors will bring students to my office to let them see how I sigh, mumble, and generally suffer. I have never found writing easy, and the right words are always hard to find.

Writing is very difficult for me, yet is a crucial part of my professional life. I rewrite continually and my grad students are horrified that I mark up my papers with a bright red pen. Sometimes, when they know I am struggling with a piece of writing, our Writing Lab Tutors will bring students to my office to let them see how I sigh, mumble, and generally suffer. I have never found writing easy, and the right words are always hard to find.

TRANSCRIPTION: Writing is very difficult for me, yet is a crucial part of my professional life. I rewrite continually and my grad students are horrified that I mark up my papers with a bright red pen. Sometimes, when they know I am struggling with a piece of writing, our Writing Lab Tutors will bring students to my office to let them see how I sigh, mumble, and generally suffer. I have never found writing easy, and the right words are always hard to find.

When my parents finally got rid of our family computer, they salvaged all of my documents and sent them to me on a jump drive. I spent an entire day reading everything I had written from 6th to 12th grade. While reading one of the papers, I found a comma splice. And as a sophomore in college, I most definitely edited a paper I had written 5 years earlier. That's sick.

Once in an undergrad survey lit course, the teacher read aloud my answer from an essay test as an example of how to write. But I'd never read the book! I knew then that good writing was powerful.

I don't like to write. I like to edit!!

I cannot write without my Lucky Sweater.

When I was 9, I wrote a book of poetry for my MOM.

My writing is theraputic (and I can't spell!)

I'm afraid I can't tell the stories I really want until everyone I'm related to dies!

Writing is tied very close to our identity. SHH. I was upset (and embarrassed) to be told to use a writing center.

Writing=Clear Thinking

Hey you! Do you have an epiphany, a revelation, a story, or a secret about yourself as a writer, or writers you've known, that you'd be willing to share with other writers? If so, write it on a "postcard," or scrawl it on some cardboard, or paint it onto cotton, or chisel it onto stone tablet -- well, okay, maybe not a stone tablet -- and drop it off at the Writing Center. The more creative, the better. In addition to displaying the "cards" in the Writing Center, we will post photos of the exhibit on our website.

Not sure what to submit? Check out the cards that have already been posted, or go to www.postsecret.com to check out the site that inspired our project. You can also ask our staff for a blank postcard to get you started.

Please feel free to pass this request on to others who may be interested. Contributors who are not on campus can mail their postcards to:  

Jaime Lynn Longo
Postcard Project
201 Tuttleman Learning Center (008-00)
1809 N. 13th Street
Philadelphia , PA 19122

 

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