Lara Zielin

STATUS: I ate my sandwich for breakfast. Sometimes that happens.

FAVE LINKEY-POO RIGHT THIS SECOND: I love author Dennis Cass and I haven’t read a single one of his books. So why the adoration? He created this video about a book launch that made my day. Much like the Office, you’re uncomfortable because you know it smacks so much of reality, but still you laugh. And laugh. Props once again to Susanna for forwarding it.

So, speaking of authors I love, I gotta give it up to John Green for writing one smackdown of a story in An Abundance of Katherines. I just finished it last night and, while I loved the main character (who does anagrams and enough math to figure out a formula for getting dumped), what I adored most about the book was its emphasis on the importance of story telling.

Green makes this gorgeous point about how time erases so much from existence. That if you look back 2,500 years, you could be hard-pressed to name ten people who lived, and that’s pretty scary since so very many people existed within that timeframe. But stories — well, those endure for much longer than specific names or specific accomplishments.

Not long ago, I blogged about the power of the six-word memoir, and I did that in part to illustrate the point that you can create killer stories, and they don’t have to be long or involved or 100,000 words. Stories are a way to leave something behind; to make an impact; to give back. Green really drove that point home in his awesomely fabulous book, and I loved every page of it.

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 22nd, 2008 at 3:43 pm and is filed under other writers, writing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.