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WRITING IN (AND ABOUT) THE FUTURE
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The journal-turned-magazine CREATIVE NONFICTION celebrated its
transformation by organizing a one-day symposium, held at the Writer’s
Center in Bethesda, Maryland, focused on how writing, reading, and
publishing may be transformed in the decade ahead.
On the program were two futurists: Jay Ogilvy, co-founder of the Global
Business Network, who described the usefulness of scenario thinking for
weighing both optimistic and pessimistic visions of the future, and Dan
Sarewitz, director of the Consortium for Science, Policy and Outcomes
at Arizona State University, who warned of the unexpected consequences
of human enhancement that many enthusiasts are hailing as a golden age
of prosperity, pointing out that the greatest example of that
enhancement is the soldier.
The bulk of the conference focused on how writers fit into this future,
a time when people may be reading fewer books but communicating with
one another and, yes, reading via a wider variety of platforms–e.g.,
blogs, Twitter, Facebook, and the multimedia digital Vook (video book)
described by Jack Sallay, the company’s vice president of marketing.
Writers of the future will bear more of the responsibility of reaching
their audiences, as publishers’ economic models become less supportive
of traditional functions like marketing and promotion, many of the
symposium participants argued. The good news is that there are more
innovative new ways of doing-it-yourself, like building a community of
supporters around an author’s blog.
As long as the written word is still valued (whether it is ultimately
read, viewed, or listened to by the audience), writing has a future.
DETAILS: CREATIVE NONFICTION, http://www.creativenonfiction.org
The Writer’s Center, http://www.writer.org
PHOTOS FROM THE CONFERENCE:
http://www.wfs.org/April-May2010/Update/photos.htm