Staggering genius Dave Eggers (I bet he gets really tired of that) talks about reading, writing, and the power of paper

My daughter Jerusha and I have been involved in a heated back and forth about my Kindle usage, which she considers nothing short of treason. I'm afraid to share this great article from the Guardian, in which Dave Eggers is optimistic about paper and ink:

"I only read on paper. I don't have an e-reader or an iPhone. I have the best time reading newspapers. I don't believe books are dead. I've seen the figures. Sales of adult fiction are up in the worst economy since the Depression."

He's not s'much on the internet:

"Writing is a deep-sea dive. You need hours just to get into it: down, down, down. If you're called back to the surface every couple of minutes by an email, you can't ever get back down. I have a great friend who became a Twitterer and he says he hasn't written anything for a year."

Read the rest here.

Eggers to authors: "When in doubt about the future of the written word -- email me!"

And I thought I was the last optimist in the publishing industry...

Here's what Dave Eggers said to members of the Authors Guild, who'd gathered last week at the Tribeca Rooftop to honor him for his work with 826 National, his nonprofit writing and tutoring centers for kids and teens:

"Nothing has changed! The written word—the love of it and the power of the written word—it hasn’t changed. It’s a matter of fostering it, fertilizing it, not giving up on it, and having faith. Don’t get down. I actually have established an e-mail address, deggers@826national.org—if you want to take it down—if you are ever feeling down, if you are ever despairing, if you ever think publishing is dying or print is dying or books are dying or newspapers are dying (the next issue of McSweeney’s will be a newspaper—we’re going to prove that it can make it. It comes out in September). If you ever have any doubt, e-mail me, and I will buck you up and prove to you that you’re wrong."

Read more in the New Yorker.