Sneak Peek: Sarah Smarsh Podcast

Sarah Smarsh: One of the reasons that I’m such a big fan of the Big Read program and the NEA and any endeavor to create dialogue around a story, whether it’s experienced by one reader or shared…a community dialogue… the reason that I have such affection for those programs isn’t just that I’m a writer. It’s that I’m somebody who very specifically chose to attempt to wield the craft of writing toward civic integrity and progress, and story absolutely is incredibly somehow, I think, the underutilized timeworn, ancient tool that we have for repairing society. Meanwhile, we live in this 24/7 media cycle and the inundation of information and the regurgitation of some stories ad nauseum, and actually, those are usually information that has been torn away from story. That’s what most news reports are, and there’s great function and purpose and nobility in that form of reporting and we need it, to be sure, so I’m not criticizing that structure. It’s just that we’ve gone so deep into information that we have lost a kind of shared story and a sense of community dialogue that in ancient times was a campfire and a very healing way of connecting to remember, “Oh, we are all responsible to one another here in this shared village in this small place.”