The Future of the Written Word
Iolanthe Gabrie
Director of Ruby Assembly, Author of 100 Days of Brave, Co-Founder of Good Axe Workspaces, Founder of the Serious Women in Business Awards
In this guest article, Ruby Slipper's Georgia Castricum recounts her recent experience at the Melbourne Writer's Festival, pondering the future of written language.
When I spotted ‘The Future of the Written Word’ on the 2017 Melbourne Writers Festival line up, there were a few reasons I was drawn to the session. Mainly, because I read the description (below) and got a little bit scared.
As technology develops, writing and the way we consume it constantly changes form – but will it ever die out, or will it continue to evolve in new, exciting ways? Ben Birchall, Amy Gray, Michael Green and Adam Pugh imagine the future of the written word.
Do you see why I became concerned? The part in the middle where someone at MWF put forward the idea that words may ‘die out’? Like it’s an actual possibility? Frightening.
Growing up in the smallest of country towns, I was the first kid scaling the fold-down ladder when the mobile library made its monthly visit. The 50-kilometer bus ride to high school was used for reading the Tomorrow When the War Began series and Melina Marchetta’s entire bibliography. When I moved to Melbourne for University, words were what I studied. They’re now what I work with every day at Ruby Slipper. They better have a future!
You can understand why I locked this down as a session I must attend. I needed to know what others - experts - where thinking when it came to ~the future~.
This is what I heard.
Ben Birchall 'visited' us via his time machine from the year 2038. Australia had a new Prime Minister. Justin Bieber had finally learnt the words to Despacito. Books were gone. Birchall asked us where we were the year libraries became obsolete. Why we hadn’t marched in protest when the last bookshop closed. We’d done nothing and now books were gone. Thankfully, Birchall was only doing what the facilitators had asked – he was imagining. Birchall of 2038 had seen a world where the written word no longer existed and he was ever so happy to come back to us.
To read the rest of this article, click here.