Words change lives! Great writers influence with their words. Great writers make a difference in other people’s lives. Do something to improve YOUR writing today.
Words Change Lives! from the Canberra Writing School on Vimeo. Words change lives. Good writers make a difference in other people's lives. Does your writing make a difference? Develop your writing and change your life.
Take a shortOnline Writing Coursetoday.
If you have been grappling with the new Facebook pages and wanting to maximise your presence as a writer on Facebook, then this training video from Facebook Classroom is a great place to start. It is “information rich” and you are bound to learn something of value here.
Hope you find it useful! Let me know if you like the new Facebook pages? I am quite interested in what people think about this development.
Sherry Turkle (often referred to as the Margaret Mead of technology) wants us to think deeply about the kinds of connections we want in the digital world.
As we expect more from technology, do we expect less from each other?
This Ted Talk opens up some deep, sociological questions that should not be ignored and especially important to writers, who write on matters of substance. Writers, whose job it is to make connections with our readers and the global community at large!
Would love to hear your thoughts on this interesting question?
I had the absolute pleasure of hearing a talk at the National Library recently given by Ramona Koval. She is a writer, a journalist and acclaimed (past) host of the Bookshow on ABC Radio National.
Ramona inspired the packed auditorium of book lovers and treated us to some notions she holds dear about the nature of reading. I found them revelatory. Revealing in terms of understanding that intense relationship of reading to writing; the analogy of "slow food" in terms of "slow reading"; and the joy of savouring every word on the page of an outstanding literary work, which has stood the test of time.
Koval thanked her mother for gifting her with this passion for books and for reading. She realised at an early age that reading is the key to opening strange worlds. She says that our introduction to reading determines our propensity to write. How right she is on this!
The discussion turned to why tyrants burn books; reading itself is an act of free will - it represents independence of mind and spirit.
We were amused to hear of one of Ramona's first adventures with reading as a young, twelve-year-old girl, when she had her mother buy the Kama Sutra for her. From this auspicious beginning, she had gravitated to "other" explorative texts - books like Robinson Crusoe; Stories of the Incas from Peru to Polynesia; ethnological and sociological works; anthropologies and explorations of the early twentieth century.
Ramona was there to reinforce what we all knew already. Writers are readers and they savour texts. The good ones in particular, enjoy the ambience of culture through the written text,
After sharing some of the writing that does just that and does it well, through her very vivid reading of excerpts from her favourite texts, Ramona finished on a beautiful quote from Goethe.
Goethe said: “He who cannot learn from 3,000 years, is living from hand to mouth.”
And the writer who cannot indulge in slow book reading, is also living from hand to mouth, when it comes to becoming a writer of substance.
I noted that Christos Tsiolkas, in Crikey, wrote of his dismay about the sudden loss of The Book Show and in particular, Ramona Koval. The analogy had been made that Ramona was to books in Australia, what David and Margaret are to film in this country.
Asked about her relationship with Auntie, Ramona told the audience that it was like a divorce – that very moment when you knew that there was no way of salvaging the marriage. “There is a point of no return” Ramona told us, and she had reached it.
Much is the pity for us! But at least I left the event on a high, and itching to get home to get into some more slow reading!
Image Source:www.mintywhite.com
The Future of the Book
It seems that many are now predicting books which will become interactive experiences, in and of themselves. A book where the reader becomes the participant and a co-contributor. Non-linear and with reader-chosen pathways to navigate your way through the book are predicted to become the norm.
I have to say I am skeptical! Why? Because for many book lovers, this is not the experience they are seeking when they read a book.
Don’t get me wrong. I love a good movie experience and I certainly could appreciate the creativity and novelty of those “choose your own endings” books as a child.
But I am not a gamer – and gamification of the book doesn’t appeal to me in the least. Neither am I after a stimulatingly rich audio-visual experience with a book.
What I want is to explore the writer’s craft – to immerse myself in a world created by a talented writer – an escape from life’s pressures to take me to some other place, be it an exotic location, or not. Just someplace else.
Now perhaps I am talking too soon. I didn’t think I’d enjoy a Kindle, but I actually do.
Please watch this fascinating video below and let me know if you agree with me or if you think that this future will be an exciting development for your own reading experience.
Perhaps I have just become a “grumpy old woman”, who is avoiding change and clinging on to old ways? But I think not. I think that books are sacred and turning them into a multimedia experience is sacrilege! What say you?
The Future of the Book. from IDEO on Vimeo.
Like this video? Vote for The Future of the Book in the Webby Awards People's Voice competition here: http://pv.webbyawards.com/ballot/107 (and hey, thank you!)
Meet Nelson, Coupland, and Alice — the faces of tomorrow’s book. Watch global design and innovation consultancy IDEO’s vision for the future of the book. What new experiences might be created by linking diverse discussions, what additional value could be created by connected readers to one another, and what innovative ways we might use to tell our favorite stories and build community around books?
www.ideo.com