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What does the expression “event of writing” mean? This analysis shows that the expression combines the notion of the event—which has been largely debated by historians since Braudel (1985)—with the notion of the “literacy event” (Heath 1983), created by researchers with close ties to ethnographers of communication (Hymes 1962). However, the theoretical currents of structuralism and functionalism that dominate this double genesis have either rejected the notion of “event,” considering it to be outside their field of study, or they have ignored it by prioritizing studies of routine writing practices that are seen as small, everyday events. If we want to study these acts of writing that interest us—these singular, exceptional, heroic acts observed in public spaces—we must change the paradigm and construct a concept of the “event of writing” that combines a pragmatic anthropological approach and a theory of “writing acts.”