On Writing

Welcome! This is Grey. Summer has passed today. Autumn has arrived. Along with the trees turning and the cooler nights, autumn brings school days back again. A boy who lives in my neighborhood called me yesterday to interview me. Seems he has a school report, and he has to interview someone who works as a writer. One of his questions was, ‘What would you say to kids who ask you what’s so important about writing anyway, and why should they learn to do it?’

Naturally, his question set me back a bit, not because I couldn’t think of anything to say, but because I could think of so many things to say.

For millennia out of mind, we humans were not a writing people. We passed our stories, songs, histories, contracts, and so on from person to person by word of mouth. Some say that, with the advent of easier and easier voice (and soon video) connections via the Internet, we may be approaching that sort of life again.

But in the meantime, words on a page or a screen are one of the ways we communicate with each other, across time and around the globe. As I quoted above, we read to know we’re not alone. But without the one who writes, where would we readers be? And, as can be noted by the email we get one of the most natural responses to reading is to write back.

Green Man Review is a place created almost entirely by written words. Through the wonderful gift we call imagination, we and you can step together into these words and share a space, ideas, and a kind of companionship.

So share our words this week, read the reviews we’ve brought here for you, which are our form of writing back to the authors and artists who have moved us. And if we move you, write to us, too. We’d love to step into your words.