Beckoning Peal of the Blogosphere

“Most experiences are unsayable,” wrote Rainer Marie Rilke in a letter to a young poet.“They come to fullness in a realm that words do not inhabit.” Yet we continue, as humans always have, to express ourselves through different ways of saying the unsayable.

Until Johannes Gutenberg invented movable type, I can only imagine how people communicated. I visualize dirtied peasants shouting from their rooftops; most likely a left over reel somewhere upstairs from Monty Python's The Holy Grail. Apart from songs and stories told around the campfire or the dinner table, there really weren't many options unless you were a part of the privileged elite who had monks spend years tediously recording and preserving documents (a belated thanks from me to them). Luckily we have come a long way in democratizing communication. Not only do we have the printed word but also a digital world with an endless supply of information.

I like to think, indeed I often do, that books and the digital world can coexist peacefully, perhaps even reflect each other in interesting ways. That is where this blog comes into the digital picture. A blog can transform a reader into an active agent— in the same way that book clubs and readings do. So I've decided to blog about the happenings of the Kingston literary scene. So much happens here, including Kingston WritersFests, Thrive reading series hosted by Erin Foley, monthly readings at the Artel hosted by Bruce Kauffman , yearly writer-in-residence at Queen's University, and many fantastic book launches hosted by our local indie book store, Novel Idea. This is also a way to motivate myself to attend more events as I've disappeared recently from most of the excitement.

-Ashley-Elizabeth Best
May 29, 2012

(This post, now modified, first appeared on the Kingston WritersFest website in 2011)