Black Cow Book Blog Tour Day 19: Steinbeck and Me (at Blogging Authors)

Today, day 19, I'm over at Blogging Authors talking about John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath and the literature of recession.  In today's Guardian UK, poet Ruth Padel says that poetry has a responsibilty to look at the world, and illuminate, in an (always) artistic way, the world we live in. I feel strongly that the same goes for fiction. "Recognising ourselves and the bigger context in which we live, or, as Joyce put it, "reducing the veil between literature and life" is a critical aspect of what literature does for us.  This means addressing the issues that we are all grappling with - in the case of Steinbeck and other writers of the recession, this means unemployment, increasing fear of poverty, rootlessness, the impact of these issues on the individual and on families in as universal a context as possible."  Drop by for the full article and don't forget to join the dialogue by commenting or sharing.