Interview with Kevin Smokler Part Two (Son of Interview with Kevin Smokler)

Erica: Welcome back to day two of "Librarians Grill Kevin Smokler, editor of Bookmark Now". Kevin, yesterday you suggested some ideas for improving library services to authors, such as voluntary writer registrations for libraries to identify and partner with their local writers, and late hours (an idea that patrons love and sleepy librarians loathe!). Today let's talk about literature. In the Introduction to Bookmark Now, you write a passionate rebuttal to the NEA's Reading at Risk report, which predicts the death of reading and literature in our culture. Could you talk a bit about what made you decide to showcase next generation writers, and have them write about writing, reading, and their place in the cannon?

Kevin: At first it was anger at hearing my parents generation (the baby boomers, the rock n' roll generation) asking me repeatedly if my generation read books. Which just seemed foolish given the popularity of Nick Hornby, Dave Eggers, Zadie Smith and This American Life. But between then and the book that became Bookmark Now, I got simultaneously more involved in working with publishers and authors and interested in blogs, rss, the next wave of online communication. Because I'm a yenta at heart and would rather have my interests in dialogue with one another, I began speaking to publishing professionals about how these technologies could help them reach readers in a hypermedia 21st century. It was then I realized how far behind this business that I love was, how left out of the cultural conversation it was making itself. And that made me sad as well as angry.

So I took what was left of the first idea--a new generation of writers who we thought were not leading literary lives and then mixed in data from the Reading at Risk report and the great flux we were all witnessing in the larger world of media. Bookmark Now then ended up as a reflection of what what it means to be creating and disseminating literature at this time in our history. I'm very happy with the result.