The Importance of Literary Citizenship

Literary citizenship is the act in which people engage in the deed of reading and writing, not only for enjoyment, but to also expand the literary world for themselves and others. As a double major in English and creative writing, I have directly seen the importance of literary citizenship and the positive effects that it has on our world. Literary citizens consist of readers, writers, editors, teachers, students, tutors, authors, critics, journalists, etc. Anything that has something to do with reading and/or writing can be considered an act of literary citizenship, especially when it is beneficial to the literary community.

The idea of literary citizenship is to take ones love for reading and writing and implement it on to other people throughout the world, creating one large community of people who enjoy literature and what it has to offer. Literary citizenship is all about the different types of exchanges people share with one another by doing something that helps stimulate someone else’s work in the literary community, and/or benefit people locally, nationally or globally.

It is an important movement because it allows people in the writing and reading communities to thrive and learn off one another, as well as dissect the literature around them. It ultimately leads others to being better literary citizens. The more people who want to help each other, the larger the literary citizenship communities become, thus allowing for children and even adults all across the globe to flourish off of each other’s knowledge.  

Participating in literary citizenship allows for many opportunities to give back and bring out the best in people. Not only do you feel good about yourself for helping the people around you learn or benefit from something that you have to offer, but it creates an outlook which makes people want to engage in all types of literature more rather than less. Some examples of literary citizenship are: donating books to a book drive for people who are less fortunate, promote reading and writing, reading aloud to people at schools, open mic nights, starting a book or writing club, starting a writing blog, or even something as simple as being a tutor. Anyone can be a literary citizen and there are many different ways in which you can get involved in this new craze of literary citizenship.

Being a literary citizen will give you an overpowering satisfaction knowing that you can do something positive for others. All you have to do is get out there and simply try it. You will begin to see the world around you prosper with the benefits that both literature and the helpful and caring citizens have to offer.