How to doomproof your reading
Junot Díaz nails the way I read—"blasphemously"—as we explore how to get along with other writers, the difference between hybrid publishing and self-publishing, and why people should read fiction.
We writerly types love to gigglesnort at memes about the men in black coming to get us based on our bizarre internet search histories. Frankly, I’m not sure my editorial search history is that much weirder than my gaming writer search history; both have sent me chasing down supernatural and super-natural medical, historical, mythological, and apocalyptic rabbit holes.
There’s something about picking up this particular sort of resource at the library checkout counter in person, however, that puts a blush on “Good afternoon, ma’am. Is this … all?” Like many physicians, I imagine most librarians eventually feel as though they’ve seen it all. But in the words of Junot Diaz, there are definitely weeks when I feel my checkout stack consists of “blasphemous” books that “might not be your friend.”
Loosen your ties and your tongues, O Writers, as we blasphemously barge our way through this week’s The Writes of Fiction.
How to doomproof your reading
Read books and writers that lay outside or athwart your political/identitarian comfort zone. I’m not saying read books/writers that want to see you dead or in a camp but just try, every now and then, to have contact with books that might not be your natural interlocutor, books that might not be your friend.
In an age like ours where folks are more partisan, more divided, more stuck in their networks than ever before, where the various sides often view each other as irredeemable and evil, my suggestion to fraternize with the enemy will strike some as straight up treason, as blasphemy.
Frankly, we could all use a whole lot more blasphemy.—Keep reading from
at StoryWorlds with Junot Díaz.
