literacy | BREATHE: Michelle Garren-Flye

Ha! That got your attention, didn’t it?

Before I get slammed by literary fiction authors, please understand that I don’t actually mean that. I have read literary fiction I LOVE. I’ve also read some that I hate. It happens, just like it does with genre—even (and possibly especially) romance, my own preferred genre.

The difference between literary authors and genre authors is that too often genre authors will just sit back and take abuse about our chosen style of writing. “It’s simple and easy,” says the literary author. A horror author replies **crickets** and gruesomely kills the literary author off in his next book. “It’s all about sex, sex, sex,” says the literary author. The romance author replies, “What? You don’t like sex? Of course it’s about sex.” But it’s not. “I can’t imagine reading anything genre,” says the literary author. “What the hell’s the matter with you, then?” says Me.

Seriously, I’m sick of it. As a librarian, I encourage reading. Period. Read what you want to read, but JUST READ. Our society as a whole is becoming less informed, less literate—and less tolerant of those with other viewpoints. A really great way to expose yourself to other viewpoints is reading. Here’s a beginner’s list of ten novels from various genres you should read now. Like, go to Amazon and download them to your Kindle because if you haven’t read them, you’re missing out.

Watership Down by Richard Adams
Princess Academy by Shannon Hale
The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver
Nightbird by Alice Hoffman
Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe
The White Dragon by Anne McCaffrey
The Castle in the Attic by Elizabeth Winthrop
Swan Song by Robert McCammon
Dune by Frank Herbert
Mansfield Park by Jane Austen

You’ll notice there are all different reading levels, genre and literary fiction included. My point with this post is that if you’re reading, you’re doing a great thing for yourself and for the world. And if you’re a writer, read what you want to read, write what you want to write and stop giving other writers a hard time. And if you’re a genre writer, STOP turning the other cheek. What you write is not less because of the genre. Only the quality of the writing can make it that.

Ha ha! How’s that for a scholarly title? I sound like a I might actually know what I’m talking about, right?

It’s possible.

Stranger things have happened.

For instance, yesterday the Oxford English Dictionary announced its Word of the Year. (Read about it here.) Past words of the year have included “selfie” (2013) and “vape” (2014), so maybe we shouldn’t be surprised that this year, the word of the year isn’t a word at all. It’s an emoji. This emoji:

Face with tears of joy emoji

Okay, so what does this have to do with illiteracy? Well, think about it. The more we use non-literate symbols to express ourselves, the more likely we are to lose our writing skills. A few years ago, I as a librarian was shocked when the summer reading program at our local library offered kids rewards for reading emails, websites and texts instead of books. What? That’s not reading. Reading is picking up a book (or an e-reader) and reading a story, following a plotline, getting to know characters, or–if you prefer nonfiction–learning something from someone who knows more than you do. None of that is going to happen in emails, texts and even most websites. Sorry.

The new word of the year seems to be following that trend.

But maybe that’s the point. Society seems content to be dumbed down. Why not let it?

Once upon a time, only the top classes of society knew how to read and write. Books were too expensive for lower classes, who were lucky to be able to scrape together food. The advent of the printing press and the wider availability of books made it possible for more people to access the same types of knowledge as the upper classes. So the printed word began to close the gap between classes, leveling the playing field in an unprecedented way.

That Renaissance may be coming to a close, though. Every day I see more signs of the decline of the English language. Misspellings, incorrect grammar and other simple errors that a good copy editor should have corrected appear in ads, newspapers and books. It makes me wonder…if we don’t use the gift of literacy, maybe we will, eventually, lose it…and be left feeling our way through another dark age.