Jennifer Haupt - Alone Together

We are honored to be part of this anthology as it marks a time when this community came together in extraordinary ways.

Pamela French, Executive Director Book Industry Charitable Foundation

Alone Together connects writers, readers, and booksellers in a wonderfully imaginative way. Its a really good book for a really good cause.

James Patterson, Bestselling Author, and Co-Ambassador for Book Industry Charitable Foundation

Alone Together showcases the human desire to grieve, explore, comfort, connect, and simply sit with the world as it weathers the pandemic a project that is noble in both word and deed.

Ann Patchett, Bestselling Author, Bookseller, and Co-Ambassador for Book Industry Charitable Foundation

These are powerful messages of unity and hope in a time of isolation and despair. Alone Together is a very important work that has emerged from a very dark time.

Kevin OBrien, New York Times Bestselling Author of The Bad Sister and The Betrayed Wife

A heartening gathering of writers joining forces for community support.

Kirkus Reviews

The best kind of connectiondeep, honest, steely, and humane

Gish Jen, Bestselling Author of The Register

Copyright 2020 Jennifer Haupt

Cover and internal design 2020 Central Avenue Marketing Ltd.

Cover Design: Michelle Halket

Cover Image: Courtesy & Copyright: Creative Market

Illustrations Courtesy & Copyright: Ailsa Weisnewski

All original interviews, essays, and poetry contained herein are the property of the original author and is printed under license to Central Avenue Marketing Ltd.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

The views and opinions expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the viewpoints, policies, or position of Central Avenue Marketing, its owners, business partners, or employees.

Proceeds from this book are donated to Book Industry Charitable Foundation (Binc). All contributors and business partners are donating their time, talent, and effort.

Published by Central Avenue Publishing, an imprint of Central Avenue Marketing Ltd. www.centralavenuepublishing.com

Published in Canada

Printed in United States of America

1. LITERARY COLLECTIONS / General2. SELF HELP/Personal Growth

ALONE TOGETHER: Love, Grief, and Comfort in the Time of COVID-19

Trade Paperback: 978-1-77168-228-2

Epub: 978-1-77168-229-9

Mobi: 978-1-77168-230-5

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By Garth Stein

I think a certain kind of America is doomed, though something greater may be coming. The novelist and only the novelist thrives on breakdown, because thats the moment when he can analyze the beauty of the values that are falling and rising One looks forward to the fall of great civilizations because it gives us great art.

John Gardner, in an interview with Charles Johnson, January 1973

Civilization begins with art, with the need to represent ones culture in a metaphysical way. A charcoal drawing in a cave in France, perhaps. Music, drums, and dancing after a feast. Public discussions and criticisms of a poem, a song, a story, a movement. A written testimony of an individuals life. Because art reflects the human experience better than any act of sustenance or preservation. An urban center is just a crowded agora, until a can of spray paint finds itself in the hands of a disenchanted youth Then, an urban center becomes a means of expression.

Art is the crucial element of humanity. And yet it is so easily chucked over the side of the sinking ship when survivors are huddled in the dark cold rain, hugging each other from fear, deciding which of them will be eaten first, wishing they had a Hobbit along for the journey to sing to them a song of their past

The Virus moved into our world, and how did we respond? We shut down art. Musical venues. Theatrical venues. Galleries and museums. Public open spaces, once filled with art: closed. Reading and gathering spaces, once crammed with poets: closed. Libraries and bookstores, coffee shops and bars. Even the street corners of our cities, the fanciful stages for buskers closed. We threw art over the side of our sinking ship.

What an existence without art! Stranded in our homes, our mouths gagged, our hands bound, we watch our idols perform to their telephones, those hollow devices of social distance. You can see the lack of conviction in their eyes. They know best of all, though they may have forgotten in their complacency, that art is a conversation, a dialogue. Without the tangible response of a reader, a viewer, a listener, the efforts of an artist mean nothing.

They say about Seattle that there are more writers here than there are readers. I dont think this aphorism is very funny, because it would mean that we have stopped trying to understand others and are now only trying to understand ourselves. Self-reflection is good, but empathy is divine.

As a writer myself, I see the delicate nature of our literary ecosystem, and how quickly it can become imbalanced. In 2009, I cofounded Seattle7Writers, with a handful of like-minded artists who felt as I did, that we must work to support the literary ecosystem. Writers must read the work of other writers, not just their own. Writers must support the booksellers who disseminate our ideas. The librarians, the teachers, the readers. Writers must cultivate our gardens so that all can eat. Ourselves included.

I became involved with the Book Industry Charitable Foundation (Binc) two years ago because it made sense to me. Booksellers, like any of us, can fall on hard times; it is not just a moral but a fiscal imperative to ensure the well-being of a writers main means of relevance. But it is also imperative to ensure the livelihood of our fellow citizens, those who want to engage in conversation, champions at the frontlines of our culture.

Perhaps this America is doomed. We will not know until the dust has settled. Is something greater coming, as John Gardner suggests? I dont believe that is a given, only a possibility. It is equally possible that art will remain submerged for so long, we will not be able to revive it. It is equally possible that the bottleneck of ideas will become more and more constricted until there is no more diversity, no impetus to reflect society from as many angles as possible, until we become dulled by the safety of our homes, the sway of our governments, and the colorlessness of our lives, until we dont actually care that our civilization is drawing to a close.

The writers who have contributed to this collection do care. Their ideas are flares. Their words are inspiration. They see the darkness, and they are trying to keep the flame burning. Proceeds from the sale of this volume will support Binc, and will keep booksellers selling books, will keep ideas smoldering beneath the thicket of wet leaves. One day, when the leaves have been dried by the wind that blows down from the mountain, a flame will spark to life, the leaves will burn again, and the people will have charcoal for drawing our history on the walls of our caves.

It will be a dark day, the day that art dies. Whether its death signals the beginning of the end, or the end of the beginning, or the end of the end, I do not know. But little fires are burning everywhereincluding inside the pages of this book you are holding now! And so I say, do not fear the end. Pick up your pen and write. Pick up a book and read. Engage in your world; do not shrink from it. Understand that the fate of our civilization lies entirely in your hands.