Announcing WWADY (Writers Who Aren't Dead Yet)

What if there were modern-day Shakespeares and Hemingways and Faulkners and Austens and Brontes, but nobody knew who they were?

What if the human experience -- today's human experience, the moral dilemas of here and the aesthetic powers of now -- were being explored by great literary minds, and we all missed it?

What if we condemned literature to the realm of the past, looking only to the wisdom of yesterday to help us find the answers for today's problems?

At WWADY (Writers Who Aren't Dead Yet), we believe art shouldn't be condemned to the past. We believe that great minds, every bit as brilliant as Shakespeare, are contributing to the world in thought, dialogue, and art, and the purpose of this blog is to find those modern Shakespeares and learn from them.

At WWADY, we also believe in community. We believe there is power in ideas, and we believe that through sharing ideas, through reading books together, through dialogue and discussion, we uncover truth.

So here's how it works:

Every month at WWADY, we'll announce a featured book. All featured books will be by writers who are still alive and kicking. We'll post discussion points and observations about the books as we read and ask our brilliant readers to chime in. Read the books with us, and use the comments at the bottom of each post to share your thoughts. February's featured book will be So Brave, Young, and Handsome by Leif Enger (author of Peace Like a River), so get your copy today.

At WWADY, we'll also keep you up to date on author news. We'll let you know about author appearances, interviews, and awards. We'll write book reviews (and we'll even publish guest book reviews from you high school and college students who need extra credit -- seriously, ask your English teacher if posting a review to our site will count for anything. What have you got to lose?)

We'll probably blog about a lot of other things along the way -- but we guarantee this. All of the authors we blog about, and more importantly, all of their ideas, will still be alive.