Comments on: The Writing-Go-Round

By: Jill Morrow

Jill Morrow — Sat, 09 May 2026 13:02:04 +0000

In reply to Sherry Audette Morrow. Sherry, it does feel noisy out there in the publishing world. And for all those books you saw by all those authors, there are so many, many more ... I guess the real question is how do readers choose what they like to read?

By: Sherry Audette Morrow

Sherry Audette Morrow — Fri, 08 May 2026 18:48:05 +0000

I was just thinking about this as I stood in a mid-sized independent bookshop in Asheville. There were so many books, and so many by authors I actually knew on the shelves that I wondered how any author can ever find an audience of more than just a few. The questioning of life choices is real.
~Sherry

By: Jill Morrow

Jill Morrow — Fri, 01 May 2026 14:28:44 +0000

In reply to Kristina. So with you on this, Kristina. Your comment also makes me wonder if the general definition of "communication" has changed. When does it stop becoming "connection" and devolve into "noise"? But that's a blog post for somebody else to write.

By: Kristina

Kristina — Fri, 01 May 2026 12:52:34 +0000

Yes, I will always write, regardless of whether anyone reads it, because it has its own benefits, for me mentally and also just by simply existing, I believe. But ultimately I’m writing to communicate, and someone else has to be on the other end of that line. The perennial dilemma of the writer, especially in the modern age when there is so much (ugh) content, it’s hard to connect.

So glad you’re back at it, still at it, whatever. Keep it coming.

By: Jill Morrow

Jill Morrow — Thu, 30 Apr 2026 11:07:15 +0000

In reply to Robert DiNapoli. Glad to supply the outlet, Robert! And, of course, I agree that the writing's worth doing. Thanks for the input!

By: Robert DiNapoli

Robert DiNapoli — Wed, 29 Apr 2026 23:27:52 +0000

It’s WAY too easy for me to get up on my high idealistic horse here and gallop off into the sunset. But the current state of the publishing industry is hopelessly distorted. Gerard Manley Hopkins was forbidden to publish by his Jesuit superiors. Emily Dickinson ‘published’ hand-sewn packets of her poems for friends. Renaissance poets like John Donne circulated their stuff in manuscripts exchanged among associates (Gutenberg’s baby was scarcely out of its cradle back then). The mass-production, profit-driven dynamic of late capitalism propels everything towards mass-market, lowest-common-denominator sludge. Honourable exceptions? Sure. But they’re exceptions, few and far between.

I’ve published six books now that have sold in their dozens 🙂 in print-on-demand formats. I’ve chosen my hill: the writing’s worth doing for its own sake (or it’s not worth doing at all). If no one comes to the party, it’s still (I hope) a well-set table. Pointless? Oscar Wilde insisted all great art must serve no practical purpose. Okay, look where that got him . . .

But I will insist the writing’s worth doing, for its own sake, in the ultimate scheme of things and sub specie aeternitatis, however vain and pointless it may seem to an accountant.

Phew . . . you need a good vent now and again . . .