Started reading the Summer 2006 issue of The Missouri Review last night (by the way, they’ve redesigned their web site–looks great, much friendlier UI). I skipped ahead to the interview with Sven Birkerts and, as usual when I read what he writes/thinks, I was not disappointed.

When discussing his experience with depression, Birkerts said something that felt at home for me:

But what I found, very early on, was that I did not feel quite so bad, so strange, if I was reading a book, or if I was writing something on paper. Something about the act, the apparent dissociation, was in fact a mode of connection, short-circuiting the loneliness.

And on the current state of literature and whether it’s worth it for writers to keep writing:

Of course it is, but only for all the right old reasons, because writing makes sense of the world, it intensifies the inner life, it matters (though to fewer and fewer) and it stands a chance, still, of influencing the world, however minimally.

It’s a lovely, thoughtful interview. I urge you to get a copy of the journal and read it for yourselves.