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.
I wholeheartedly relate to the notion of just being a fangirl that you pointed out; I feel like there’s a growing stigma towards fangirls and the fandom culture that surrounds them, but that’s so ridiculous when you think about it. Stigmatizing people for being enthusiastic and for engaging with what they’re interested in? It could push these people away from engaging in their literary (or otherwise) citizenship, and that’s just wrong. I’d be curious to hear what you think about what effect labelling our actions as literary citizenship has on our participation in these communities.
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