The digital movement isn’t bringing about the death of the book, in my opinion. It’s given literature a young, hip outlook.
The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore (2011) by William Joyce can be paired with an optional that makes the book an interactive narrative experience, blurring the line between picture book and animated film. If this helps hook readers, I am in favour of combining technology with literature.
My university English classes rarely take the author into consideration. We are told because we don’t have access to the author that we don’t concern ourselves with his or her thoughts. The digital age, though, helps us have access to the author. Skype allows our students to connect with writers. Authors host Twitter chats and answer questions about their works.
Online communities see fan-fiction writers interact with likeminded fan-fiction writers. Who waits for rejection letters from publishers anymore? Booksellers have made it easy for writers to self-publish. Today I learned about Twitter story contests where writers create short stories no more than 140 characters in length. The digital age makes all of this possible.
I’m reading online articles dating back to 2008 that ask whether “intelligent literature can survive in the digital age?” Seven years later, book stores haven’t gone the way of the dodo bird — yet. Instead of worrying about the damage that the digital age will inflict on “intelligent literature,” teachers need to embrace the digital age and explore this new chapter currently being written.