By Katy Munger, 2016 Piedmont Laureate

When I was little girl, I used to spend whole afternoons perched in a tree in my overgrown backyard in Raleigh’s Cameron Park, reading books for hours while eating fresh tomato sandwiches on toast. I can still feel the sharp bite of toast in my mouth and the sting of tomato as I turned the pages, lost in my own private world. (That’s me on the right in the photo, in my prime tree-climbing days, no doubt clutching some unsuitable paperback to my chest. No one was getting my book away from me.)

God knows there was no shortage of books for me to choose from, and little supervision over what I read. I read from the original first editions of the Mother West Wind books, plowed through every single one of the Wizard of Oz books, and got an early dose of detective fiction with the Boxcar Children and the Bobbsey Twins. But I was just as likely to be reading Ernest Hemingway, Scott Fitzgerald, Nathanael West (clearly exhibiting a dark streak early!), or even Aldous Huxley and Sinclair Lewis. My grandfather had been a Chicago time study engineer in the meat packing business and so his shelves yielded Upton Sinclair as well as all three volumes of Shelby Foote’s Civil War series. As I got older, I discovered Lady Chatterley’s Lover and a massive medical guide to psychiatric disorders under my mother’s bed that kept me rapt for weeks. Later on, when my father became the book editor of the News and Observer, I had veritable mountains of books to choose from whenever I read. But I think one of my favorite reading experiences was methodically working my way through a huge pile of original Life magazines stacked in our living room that chronicled decades long past. I became a time traveler and still feel, deep inside me, as if I actually lived through those decades — such is the power of reading.

Later, as a real traveler barreling down the highways of the Northeast and Canada on camping trips with my family, I would sit in the boot of our station wagon, reading James Bond for hours until, bleary-eyed, I’d look up to see some massive mountain looming in the distance. As a result, I still believe, on some level, that every James Bond book takes place in Switzerland.

I took my love of reading to college, and can vividly remember reading Gone with the Wind on a hot summer day in the tiny bedroom of a trailer parked off a then-deserted Mason Farm Road outside of Chapel Hill. I was devouring the story so rapidly that one of my cats, after observing my eye movement in silent bewilderment, tried to pluck out an eyeball. It was dangerous business reading about Scarlet, but after surviving a corneal scratch, so obsessed was I that I actually read the cheesy sequel of the same name — an absorbing but ultimately unsatisfying experience that did nothing to deter me from tackling other huge tomes like James Michener‘s Hawaii. (“Is there no place on earth safe from James Michener?” — an unknown, and much funnier, book reviewer than I). The bigger the book, the better the book became my motto. Oh, for the days of a long attention span!

I was, of course, using reading as an escape. Those long afternoons in the crook of a tree were the only quiet times I had growing up in a house full of nine individuals, sometimes an equal amount of dogs, and more than enough drama. In college, books were an escape from all the decisions that awaited me about my life. Later, when I lived in New York for many years, books were a way to escape the city’s endless concrete and air of general disappointment that eventually gave me spiritual claustrophobia and sent me back to the South.

But somewhere along the way, in the midst of juggling two careers and raising a child, I lost the ability to sit and read for extended periods of time. The advent of social media did not help. Like everyone else, I was fascinated with this new online world and wasted hours of my life talking to strangers. When the instant high of the online scene faded, and the demands of the real world grew ever greater, I was left with a persistent tear in my soul that I could not quite pinpoint. I did not realize then that it was the lack of reading in my life. Thank God for my book club, if not for the past 15 years of needing to show up once a month having read the book, or at least part of it, I am not sure I would have read many books at all beyond those I was contractually obligated to review.

Then a lovely thing happened six months ago: I moved much closer to where I work and found myself with an extra hour a day to do with as I wished. Weary of computers, email, and instant messages, I was determined to spend that hour off-line. I began to reclaim even more lost hours, shut down the electronics, and spent more and more time reading. I discovered the joys of used bookstores and walked out with shopping bags full of everything from true crime to Proust. I started to read my books every Sunday morning in companionable silence with my housemate, one of the few people I have ever known who can actually read the entire New York Times. Every session spent reading seemed to restore some lost part of myself. I began reading for an hour after work each day in my side yard, enjoying the green among the green (as Graham Greene himself would say). Little by little, I reclaimed my reading time and reclaimed myself along the way. Now, without apology, at least once a day, I do not return messages, I ignore Facebook posts, and I let the e-mails sit as I take a book and withdraw to my solitary pleasure and let the calm of being lost in a private world wash over me. I am grateful to have found this peace — and I feel myself becoming whole again in some mysterious way.

It is nearly impossible to find privacy in this world we live in. There are always noises coming at you, messages pinging, phones ringing, images moving, and people bombarding you with ways to spend your money. Reading remains one of the very few solitary pleasures left and I am grateful I have re-discovered it.

If you, too, feel the world is too much with us these days, I highly recommend that you return to reading as well. I don’t think it matters what you choose. What matters is that you give yourself the time to sit, insulated from the madness around you, lost in the world of your pages, just you and your book, and an engaged imagination, and a soul that is grateful for the rest.

By Katy Munger, 2016 Piedmont Laureate

On Saturday night, as part of the Piedmont Laureate program, I joined a number of other North Carolina writers in greeting people as they entered the North Carolina State University Theater to see two wonderful mystery-related shows, The Hollow and Something’s Afoot. What a wonderful experience it was to see groups of people entering the lobby, their faces animated with the expectation that they were soon to see something new. Even better, I was able to meet and talk with many of them, introducing them to the writers there so they could learn more about their books. I was struck by how engaged the theatergoers all seemed, as well as by the diversity of the crowd — people of all shapes, sizes, ages and backgrounds, all there to share in the experience of live theater. They brought good-humored curiosity to meeting the authors waiting for them and it was wonderful to see one new connection after another being made. A number of people had their children in tow. I wanted to throw my arms around those parents and thank them for making sure that at least some young people grew up understanding the joy of being a part of the arts.

“It’s just such a different feeling,” one dapper gentleman told me. “You are part of something volatile and alive. Each show is a different experience from the one before.” He remembered a show he had seen at the theater a few seasons before where, when the actor bowed, his wig flew off and skittered across the stage. “You just never know what will happen!” he said happily.

Was he in search of cultural enrichment? No. I think he just wanted to feel alive and be more than a sack of meat and bone staring, slack-jawed and drooling, at a flickering screen.

The theatergoers were a great crowd to talk to about reading. Most of them were devoted readers and eager to meet new authors and take a look at the books we write. They wanted to talk about ideas, they were open to making new friends, and they seem relaxed and at ease with themselves. There was a camaraderie in the lobby, a sort of shared acknowledgment that everyone there had something in common and that it was okay to drop the suspicion that is so easy to adopt towards strangers these days.

We need a nation of people like this. I am convinced that people who get up off their couches and head out to see theater, or attend author readings, or enjoy an arts performance of any kind, end up being less afraid of the world, less affected by the histrionic messages that pour into our homes via media, bringing fear and hostility and that persistent sense of vague doom that relentless news reports and shares of those reports can create. It is so easy to get caught up in the constant stimulation of one outrage or disaster after another that I think we sometimes forget to be a participant in the world, rather than simply a watcher of it.

I wish we could find more ways to get people out of their homes and out to arts performances. I wish we could convince more people to turn off their televisions and skip the shopping mall and take a chance on a music or theater experience, or meeting an author, or viewing a new painting or photography show, or seeing once and for all what modern dance is all about. All of these art forms are, at their heart, a form of expression and simply being there, to witness that expression, shows a respect for other people and that makes the world a better place.

So please join me in vowing to be a more active participant in what is somewhat demeaningly called “culture” these days. Be one of those happy, engaged people in the world. Be one of those people with open minds who seek out the unexpected. Be one of those people who would rather see something they don’t understand than sit on a couch and watching a television show they already know the inevitable ending to. Go ahead and buy those season tickets. Go ahead and invite a friend to the next show. And if you have kids, take them to the theater, to the art gallery, to a dance performance. Let them see for themselves how much richer life can be when it doesn’t come at you through an electronic screen.

By Katy Munger, 2016 Piedmont Laureate

This blog post is the final installment of an adaptation of a talk I gave on April 26th at the Cameron Village Library. Prior posts focused on the future of libraries and books. In this final post, I discuss how the world is changing for writers and why we need to change how we define success as well as what it is that we are aiming for when we write.

It’s not easy being a writer in a world where the way we communicate and absorb information changes, literally, by the day. Worse, for too many writers, this is today’s reality:

It is more difficult than ever to make a living writing books. With the rise of ebooks, more people than ever are publishing even as traditional publishers offer authors smaller advances and less support for books outside the mainstream. To make a living writing good books is even harder: you can’t make big money as an author without devoting significant amounts of your time marketing your work—yet time devoted to marketing is time away from perfecting, revising, or writing your books.

Big publishers follow a throw it against the wall and see what sticks spaghetti strategy. Authors come cheap. For a few thousand dollars, they can lock down a book, keep the competition from getting that author, throw some copies out there, and then wait and see if lightning strikes and someone manages to break out by the grace of the Internet gods or a lucky break.

Big publishers are way too fond of distracting authors in hopes we won’t notice how badly we are being treated. They do this by pitting us against one another (trust us, we’re not each other’s enemies) and by sending us off to market our own books using whatever the technique du jour may be. Maybe if we’re busy blogging or self-promoting on Facebook, we won’t notice our publisher didn’t buy a single ad or schedule a single interview for our newest book.

Even if you do get signed by a major publisher, it’s almost impossible to break in no matter how good your book is. Because good, new books rarely sell. What sells is another book by a name brand author, or a book by someone similar who can convince an existing big name to throw their endorsement behind them.

What do we do under these circumstances? We can start by naming it right and by claiming the power that we do have.

And what we have the power to do is control is the writing process itself, the stories we tell, what audiences we write for, and how we present our books to the public. To claim your power, start by rejecting the idea that writers are irrelevant today. As writers, we are the only people in our world who provide depth you can’t find anywhere else, depth needed to counteract the superficiality of the rest of the information we receive today. We are the only ones putting all the superficial instant messages coming at us in context and provide other people with perspective. We are the ones who connect humanity, for, absent personal contact, it is within the context of a tale that people cross demographic and geographic boundaries, to learn about one another while realizing the truth about humans: no matter where we come from, we are always more alike than we are different and we must remember to honor how we are alike if we hope to survive this world as a species.

So yes, you have great power to shape the world for the better. This is my advice to those of you seeking to claim that power:

Know why you write and who you are writing for. Is it to shine a light on how to survive a crisis? Is it to inspire people to live life more fully, or to make people laugh? Don’t type a single word until you know exactly why you are writing, who you are writing for, and how you want people to react to what you have written.

Tailor your outlet to why you write. Not everyone will have a goal that can be achieved or an audience that can be reached by having a book published by a mainstream publisher. Find your audience, learn how and where they read, then choose an outlet and a format that will bring you in touch with that audience—whether it is a full length book, self-publishing, a series of online novellas, a graphic novel, a podcast, a blog, or some other medium.

Don’t define your success by whether you get a contract from a brand name publisher. Define your success by whether you have reached the audience you were trying to reach.

Don’t play their game beyond the first three innings. If you do not get a big advance from a mainstream publisher, they have no incentive to market you. So if you do go the traditional route, and you don’t get a decent advance and marketing support by the time you reach your third book with them, find another publisher or find another way to reach your audience. Otherwise, you’re just spinning your wheels.

Only write a good book, with your truth in it, when you have something to say, no matter what your genre is. Find your voice and write your book with it:  never imitate someone else… don’t write solely to try and create a bestseller because the chances are zero that you will… and above all, remember that the world does not need another bad book. If you can’t write a book with you in it, you are only contributing to information overload and that may well end up dooming us all.

Understand that the real value of being a writer lies in the process itself. You are privileged to sit down and write. Feel it, enjoy it, and make the process your destination. That’s where you will be spending 99.999% of your time. Don’t waste that time. Experience it and make it count.

Participate in author co-ops and other group efforts like book tours and online marketing campaigns. Channel the power of social media for all. These are your people. Support one another.

Support and honor small publishers. Help them publicize their books. Buy their books. Give them a chance to publish your book. They are our only hope for keeping quality in the book-selling business and preserving the diversity of our voices.

Protect your writing time. If you are an author, put your talent and your energy into writing. Don’t drink the Kool-Aid. No one can be a great writer, agent, designer, and publicist all at the same time. If you have to publicize your own books, save up your money and hire someone else to do it. If you have to design your own book or eBook, and you’re not proficient at it, then hire someone else to do it for you. Your job is to write.

None of these ideas are magic bullets. None of these ideas are mine alone. But they are a start and we need to start the discussion now. In closing, I’d like to urge you to be part of the discussion. Talk about it today. Make it real. Be a writer citizen of the literary world. Be a writer willing to shape the writing experience rather than sitting and taking what the future brings.

by Katy Munger, 2016 Piedmont Laureate

Part 3 of a talk I gave at the Cameron Village Library on April 26, adapted for this blog.

What does the future hold for books? I don’t mean the construction, I mean the contents—whether print or ebook. In a few decade’s time, will there even be room in our world for writing that requires attention for longer than a few moments?

My answers to both questions are simple in concept, but complex in execution. Yes, there will be room for books in the future. In fact, we will need books more than ever. Only books can illuminate the most important aspects of being human, put those aspects in context, unite people around them, and overcome the polarizing effect that 30-second messages have. Only books have the power to promote deeper thought and combat the oversimplification of issues and advice flooding our world today. But the real truth of the matter is that the future of books may depend on what we, as the readers of today, start doing now. As readers, we must find a way to:

• Keep good books alive, books that go beyond the limited bestseller list selections forced on us by publishers and large book store chains that focus solely on profits.
• Filter out poorly written books, especially when it comes to ebooks.
• Keep small publishers afloat: they are a critically needed break-through option for authors whose voices are not yet recognized.
• Support local bookstores attempting to survive financially while giving books beyond the bestseller list a place on their shelves.
• Use libraries as a way to promote emerging authors.

So how do we, as readers make that happen? For a start:

• Review, share, discuss, have an opinion, weigh in, keep the flame alive, pledge allegiance not just to your favorite authors but to the world of reading itself. Become an active reader and, by that, I mean an engaged citizen of the reading world. One who shuts a book and asks the question: “How can I tell more people about this book? How can I be this book’s voice?”
• Seek out authors, don’t wait to be told who to read by big publishers or the bestseller lists. The internet is full of advice and recommendations. Pinpoint what you enjoy—fiction, nonfiction, humor, learning, inspirational, self-help—and then go out and uncover the hidden gems in your genre.
• If you follow a big name author and they phone in it—let them know. Don’t rave about a book just because you love the author or everyone else is talking about it. Your opinion counts. Give the author and publisher feedback. Let other readers know. Life is too short and there are too many good books out there for anyone to waste time on a poorly written or derivative one.
• Use your discretion in evaluating online reviews: are they real reviews, written by real readers? Is the review by someone who bothered to actually read the entire book or are they passing judgment after only a handful of pages. Is a rave review a plant or a for-pay review? It’s not hard to pick up the patterns and learn to spot the real ones. Join an online readers site, like Good Reads, for guidance from other readers.
• Support efforts to bring taste to the world of ebooks. Leave reviews on ebooks. Support filtering services. I dream of a Good Housekeeping style reviewing service for eBooks, where writers pay a small fee for an objective organization to read and rate their book. Authors and publishers submit their books for review and readers look for this seal before they buy. Some websites are doing this on a smaller scale, but we need an industry-wide rating system devoid of commercial influences. If you know of a good ebook screening service, or have a better idea on how we can screen the millions of ebooks flooding the market, post it in the comments below. We need to find a way to elevate the good books lost in the ebook avalanche or we risk killing the benefits that ebooks could give to tomorrow’s authors.
• Demand the benefits of technology:  buy your hard copy books online from small publishers, small bookstores, or even the authors themselves… insist your local book store order print-on-demand books that you want… lobby for the big chains to pioneer print-on-demand machines in their stores so that consumers can choose from thousands of titles and have a book custom-made while they wait. In short, don’t settle for what stores carry on their shelves. Demand they listen to readers and not just sales reps.
• Work with your local bookstore or library to sponsor exhibits and events that celebrate new authors, feature local authors, honor overlooked authors, or publicize small publisher offerings.
• Attend readings, even those by lesser known writers, and publicize their events and books on your social media feeds. They need you to help spread the word about their writing and the power of books. Help them keep the flame alive.

Do you have other ideas for promoting the future of books or getting the word out on worthy authors? I’d love to hear your thoughts below. With enough good ideas, we can create a Reader’s Pledge and start a campaign to get people to sign it. Let’s keep the future of books alive.

by Katy Munger, 2016 Piedmont Laureate

Part 2 in a series of blog posts adapted from a talk I gave at the Cameron Village Library in April of 2016.

Today’s library has become, quite literally, the only great equalizer in our society. It is a place where economic status, race, gender and citizenship are irrelevant, a place where everyone is welcome and can get equal access to knowledge that can help them better their lives and the lives of their children.

In a world where people bunker down and socialize and shop only with people exactly like themselves, in many communities, libraries have also become the only place where we run into people different from us, the only place where we have a chance to see and hear other voices.

In many ways, what libraries give communities today is the living embodiment of what you will find on the shelves of these libraries: respect for all voices, an acknowledgement that we all have something to say, and a reminder that we are better as a species when we listen to and learn from one another.

In the future, libraries will be only be called on to play this vital role even more. They are the connectors of our towns and cities and communities. They are the third place that Ray Oldenburg wrote about in 1989 as so vital to our survival as a society: a neutral place in between work and home that is:

• Free or inexpensive
• Highly accessible
• Welcoming and comfortable
• A place where both old and new friends can be found

How then can we protect them? It’s simple. We must be like the NRA: no compromise. Ever.

No compromise in the level of funding our libraries receive.

No compromise when it comes to proposals to shut down library access in neighborhoods.

No compromise when reactionary nitwits who are afraid of knowledge turn on libraries and try to destroy them because they fear them.

Fight back if this happens. Be like the people of Kansas, who paid attention when their state lawmakers tried to shut down over 100 libraries. Within a week, the people of Kansas had risen up as one and forced their state lawmakers to drop their attack on public libraries. We must be prepared to do the same, if necessary.

Remember: the library is the vanguard of civilization, a temple of knowledge that connects us to the past and the future — but most of all, to each other.