Content-type: text/html Downes.ca ~ Stephen's Web ~ In the Only Surviving Recording of Her Voice, Virginia Woolf Explains Why Writing Isn’t a “Craft” (1937)

Stephen Downes

Knowledge, Learning, Community

Compare what we say about information today with what Virginia Woolf says about words in this the only surviving recording of her voice: "(words) hate being useful; they hate making money; they hate being lectured about in public. In short, they hate anything that stamps them with one meaning or confines them to one attitude, for it is in their nature to change." What a world we live in, where we can hear the living words of great people now long since passed on. I am inclined to agree with Woolf here; I have never thought of writing as a 'craft'. But I don't think of it as an art either. It is something else.

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Stephen Downes Stephen Downes, Casselman, Canada
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Last Updated: Apr 20, 2024 06:09 a.m.

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