Paul Reali

Getting Lit at Home

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So, you’re going to be spending a bit more time at home? You could binge Netflix, but we have some ideas for how to get more Lit. (Thanks to WCNC’s Charlotte Today for inviting us on to talk about these ideas.)

Read more.

We all have a stack on our nightstands. Plus, you can check out ebooks from the Charlotte Mecklenburg Library, or actual books if you visit one in person. If you request a book online, they’ll deliver to your local branch.

Listen more.

Audiobooks are a growing trend. You can buy audiobooks from Audible and Libro.fm (where purchases benefit your chosen independent bookstore), or — again — download them  from the library. There are also many great literary podcasts. The New Yorker has several notable ones: The Writer’s Voice, in which the magazine’s latest short stories are read by the author; the Fiction Podcast, in which writers select a story from the New Yorker archives to read and discuss; and the Poetry Podcast, which does the same for poetry. Locally, there’s Charlotte Readers Podcast, which has 100 episodes of local and national writers reading and discussing their work — including Charlotte Lit’s Paul Reali and Kathie Collins and many of our members and teachers.

Read to each other.

We read to our kids when they’re small, but reading out loud is a wonderful experience at any age. Poetry reads particularly well, but you can read anything. How about Harry Potter?

Netflix and…novel.

There’s certainly going to be some TV watching during our extending home stays, so how about reading a novel and then watching the movie or serial adaptation? The other order works, too.

Begin writing.

There’s a thing called NaNoWriMo, the National Novel Writing Month, where people try to write a first draft of a novel 50,000 words, in a month. You could make your own writing challenge and make a great head start on your own novel or memoir, or some poetry. A good way to begin is by keeping a journal.

Take a class.

There are many online classes for writers, and really for anyone and about anything. Grub Street, Coursera, MasterClass — there are lots of options. Little known is that if you have a library card you can access The Great Courses for free, streaming, with the Kanopy service.