As media companies continue to experiment with radical changes in platform and delivery and book publishers scan the blogosphere in search of the next great writer, one thing hasn’t changed:
Storytelling is a connection, an act of understanding and empathy, the beating heart at the center of every form of human expression.
It’s ancient hieroglyphics and the Venus de Milo. It’s Picasso’s “The Old Guitarist” and Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury. It’s Leonard Pitts’s latest column and the blog entry Arianna Huffington almost certainly is formulating at this very moment. Writing isn’t only a means of communicating, it’s a cornerstone of community and civilized society.
For all we hear about the shortening of the American attention span, the truth is that the writer’s voice, both on the page and online, still has tremendous power.
That’s the power we hold in our hands, and that we must – we must – hand down.
