This podcast brings together graduates of FSU’s graduate program in Rhetoric and Composition to reflect upon “everyday writing,” a concept they’ve each explored with Kathleen Blake Yancey during their time at FSU. Through candid conversations, Joe Cirio, Jacob Craig, Jeff Naftzinger, and Erin Workman explore how mundane, self-sponsored texts—postcards, recipes, graffiti, tombstones—shape lives and communities. Across four episodes, they discuss definitions, personal encounters, disciplinary tensions, and the future of studying ordinary writing as meaningful cultural practice.
The hosts introduce themselves and trace their encounters with Yancey’s ideas on everyday writing. They recall a formative seminar built around ephemeral and ordinary texts that redefine writing’s scope. The conversation situates everyday writing as overlooked but vital: the ordinary texts people create to live, connect, and leave traces outside institutional contexts.
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The group debates how to define everyday writing and revisits an earlier 3-part definition: self-sponsored, purposeful, enacted. They also examine tensions around sponsorship, economics, and institutional ties. Yancey’s notion of writing that “mediates life” resonates, shifting focus from school-based definitions toward writing’s lived functions, connections, and invisibility in daily practices.
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The conversation challenges the assumption that everyday writing is atomistic and individual. Through stories of family letters, graffiti, and archival discoveries, the hosts reveal everyday writing as deeply networked. By exploring how everyday writing can surface hidden narratives and shape memory, the hosts underscore the importance of studying and preserving ephemeral texts. Personal, family archives can link lives, histories, and communities.
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The hosts consider everyday writing’s trajectory in research and teaching. They call for attention to writing through the lifespans and reimagining writing studies beyond classroom service, i.e. the teaching and administration of writing. Everyday writing emerges as a lens for disciplinary renewal, valuing writing as cultural practice, connective force, and theoretical object rather than merely pedagogical.
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