by Stacey Goldstein
It’s been over a year since Hamas terrorists attacked Israel, and more than two since Russia invaded Ukraine. Yet these aren’t the only conflicts out there. In fact, there are over 110 armed conflicts currently taking place across our planet.
Human beings have always been at war. We are an opinionated, and at many times violent, species.
This is why creative writers are so important.
Regardless of your politics, we can all agree on this: Writers have always been dreamers. We love to enter other people’s minds, see and hear their stories, analyze them, and reword our own stories for public consumption. Most of the time, it’s done for the love of words. Not for the wallet. In fact, if you look at the numerous rejection emails racked up by the average author, or the income of the average author, we’re clearly not doing this for the money and glory. We are doing this work to help shape the world. And our obligation to write grows more important with each passing day that humans roam this planet.
Humans learn from stories. We can learn violence. And we can learn peace. Hate or tolerance. Uniformity or diversity. We can learn to speak out. And we can learn how to fight for what is right.
From our first moments, we begin learning about the world from picture books and cartoons. As we grow, we need middle-grade and young-adult books and movies, then poetry, short stories, essays, memoirs, narrative nonfiction, adult fiction, plays, and films.
Those of us who write help, not only the people that consume our stories, but also the newscasters who internalize our thoughts and use them to shape their views as they spit the news out to the public. Because, let’s face it, nothing is unbiased. Not even simple reports of what’s happening in our world. Why else would we need CNN, Fox, ABC, NBC, CBS, BBC, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and the many, many, many other news outlets available to us?
One of the things I love about spending time with writers is that we are a compassionate and tolerant people. We are mostly a people who want everyone to get along. Through our art, we want to show the world in a new way, and to leave the reader changed.
Suzanne Collins wrote The Hunger Games series because she wanted to show the devastating effects that war can have on young people. Markus Zusak wrote The Book Thief because he wanted to show people doing beautiful things even in the ugliest of times. Malika Oufkir wrote her memoir, Stolen Lives, to show the effects an oppressive government can have on the people who speak out. Robert Frost wrote his poem “The Road Not Taken” to depict what it means for people to think for themselves, rather than follow the crowd.
Writers write because we want to give shape to our thoughts and imaginings, to create something beautiful with our words, but also because we know our obligation to the world and to our fellow human beings. Writers write because we want everyone to take the Robert Frost view – and take it to the extreme. We want peace and compassion. We want our newscasters and their viewers to critically think about these conflicts. We want people to view stories (imagined and real) with an open mind. Not just to support or oppose because they are told to.
It's the writer’s job to explore literature, to dig deep into the souls of other writers and understand the literary decisions that motivate them. Then to dig deep into our own souls to make our own writing that much more attractive to the person seeking out new stories and new views. We can’t just write. We must write in a way that reaches the audience. That speaks to the reader or viewer. And makes them think in a new way.
Because of what we write.
What an awesome responsibility we have.
Stacey Goldstein received her Masters of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from Spalding University in June 2024. She writes middle grade and can usually be found with her one husband, two kids, and three dogs.