As you’ve likely noticed, reading is a big thing to us here. In fact, All Rights Reserved is a literacy association, promoting both reading and writing as a way to develop literacy skills. We firmly believe in the power of literacy to improve people’s lives.
Recently the Literary Trust in Britain (twitter @Literacy_Trust) rolled out a new poster campaign to promote literacy among Britons. The campaign uses celebrity appeal to promote its message. According to the Literacy Trust, “The celebrity ambassadors, with their urban appeal, speak directly to young people from multicultural backgrounds. The posters show how much [these celebrities] enjoy reading and challenging stereotypes of readers.” And there certainly are stereotypes of readers, and writers.
When you’re at a party, meeting new people, there’s always the question: what do you do? I used to joke with my girlfriend I was going to tell people I was a poet. Of course, the joke was poets never make any money, but still have a certain cachet. There’s something romantic about that cachet–that respect for the literary word. There’s also something elitist or inaccessible, which can unfortunately put people off of reading and writing.
The Literary Trust campaign is looking to make literacy accessible and acceptable to urban, multicultural Britons, by breaking the image of literature as being elitist or inaccessible. All Rights Reserved would like the same thing for Canadians. We have such a rich literary culture that we should all share in it. We should all have the opportunity to contribute to it, too.
The popularity of social media shows we have an interest in reading the words of others, and sharing our own. But, for me, it’s still nice to flip through a book or journal. That’s why we hope to continue to publish excellent literary works for years to come. We also wouldn’t mind seeing more publications appearing. I know not everyone is a writer (I’m not much of one myself), but anyone with an interest can dabble. That’s the great thing about the written word: it’s available to anyone who can read or write. And that’s why we promote literacy. We want to see everyone have access to our Canadian literary culture–as readers and writers.
