My mini-essay "Books in the Digital Era" is featured this month in Deep Magic's April 2006 edition.

In it, I talk about the optimistic prospects for books as culture that people can get more up-close and personal with than they can with mass-market movies whose stars must, of necessity, be worshipped from afar. I believe readers and writers will interact more in the new age of "mammals" in book publishing. Those who love books and reading will do so pro-actively: on websites, through reviews, in book clubs, as advocates of favorite titles or critics of trends they abhor. Multiple roles can be played by individuals in the digital age in a way that was not natural in the past. It won't be odd for writers to be readers, reviewers, editors and fans of other writers, for example.

Anyone who, like me, has ever felt depressed by the prospect of a future plastered with wall-to-wall video blasting out impersonal, homogenous messages of 30-second-chunks of action-action-action and buy-buy-buy, should feel a touch encouraged by my point of view.

posted by Lynda at 17:24   comment? e-mail lynda@okalrel.org 0 comments