Good or Bad?

            I am a huge fan of Jodi Picoult and all the books she’s written, and I own every single one of them. Every time I bought a new book of hers, or checked one out of the library, I always Tweeted about it or shared it on Facebook. I didn’t know it at the time, but I was being the best literary citizen I could be, not knowing exactly what it meant. At the time, it didn’t matter, because I was sharing the love I had of Jodi Picoult with the world.

            Along with Jodi Picoult, I am a huge fan of Nicholas Sparks. Now, I don’t own all of his books (that would take a lot of time), but I have read all of them. But I wouldn’t have known about him if it wasn’t for Picoult’s great dislike of him. And, even though it was a bad review of all of his work, it was probably the best literary citizen move on Picoult’s part, but it opened up a world of wonder for me, and I’d think for Sparks too.

            I guess what I’m trying to say is that no literary citizenship is bad citizenship. Had it not been for Picoult’s distaste in Sparks’ writing, I would never have known about him. Sure, I could probably have read his books after watching the movies, but who would want to do that? I don’t. There have been times when I gave a bad review about a book to my friend, but then she ends up liking the book, even though I hated it. For example, I absolutely did not like Finding Alaska by John Green, but several of my friends did even after I told them why I didn’t like it.

            As long as someone is saying something, good or bad, about a book or author, it’s still literary citizenship, and that’s all that matters. 

Blog Post #1

What does being a Literary Citizen mean to you? That’s an interesting question, isn’t it? Before this class started, I had no idea what Literary Citizenship or Literary Citizen meant. I had never heard of it. One of the first readings we had before the class started was Cathy Day’s Principles of Literary Citizenship. From that one reading alone, I learned more about Literary Citizenship than I thought I ever could.

I think being a Literary Citizen means supporting anything and everyone in the literary world. I followed all my favorite authors on Twitter and Instagram right when I started social media, but didn’t know that I was participating in Literary Citizenship. I just thought that I was being a “fan girl” of sorts. So, doing a simple thing like following your favorite writer, or any writer for that matter, is Literary Citizenship.

I also think being a Literary Citizen is to let the author and your followers/friends know what’s going well and what’s not. Getting your opinion of your favorite author and your favorite books out there in the world is probably the most important aspect of being a Literary Citizen. Telling your followers/friends about a book/author and then they tell someone else and so on makes instantly makes more people into Literary Citizens. The more we have, the better off we’ll be.

Ever since learning about being a Literary Citizen, I take it very seriously. It means so much to me to create relationships with my favorite authors and publishers. Having a passion for reading and writing, then sharing it with everyone is what I truly think what matters. Having passion for something, anything, alone is something great, but being able to show and share and spread your passion with someone else is magical. Truly magical. Sharing your passion with everyone makes you a Literary Citizen.