I’ve posted something very similar on my Italian blog, yesterday, but I want to do it again here, because…

Well, because terrible things keep happening, and everything seems to indicate that they will keep happening for Heaven knows how long. I was musing about it yesterday, and thinking how small, how inadequate it feels in such moments to sit down and write of history, and theatre, and books…

Then I found on Karavansara a quote of Charles De Lint’s, saying how writers keep shining little lights in the gathering darkness.

And I thought: yes, this is it. This is what I want to do too. Light up a little flame, and hope it will make readers think. Not to make them think something in particular – that readers can agree or disagree with what they read is a given… just think. And wonder, and ask questions, and maybe read up some author or historical character, or read a new book, or argue, or get angry, and light another flame…  One hopes to make think – and to keep thinking, even in the midst of all the terrible things.

So yes – this is what we do with the stories, and history, and books, and theatre, in the firm belief that a thinking world will be better equipped against the darkness, and even the smallest light can help.