This And That
Five Years. I cannot say why that was the number but when I founded WoW (World of Words) Gstaad in 2020, I told myself that if we could make it past the five year mark we would be real. That is to say, we would have transitioned from a quaint book fair in a little village to an all grown-up, respected, international literature festival. It would be hard to deny that, thanks to the support of our sponsors, donors, ticket-buyers, and authors, we have reached grown-up status.
Attendee numbers and backgrounds have grown and broadened. From an initial audience of around 20 primarily local attendees, we numbered, this past summer, over one hundred attendees from the nearby big cities and from across the globe. One of our biggest successes was the ever-growing number of ticket buyers who came to us on our own merits, with no prior connection to Gstaad, to WoW, or to anyone involved with WoW.
While it’s true that we still have a bit to go before reaching the sorts of numbers that attract international headlines, our literary chops are unassailable. Since the first WoW Gstaad in 2021, up to and including the latest event this past summer, our stages have housed internationally bestselling authors; Booker Award Winners; Academie Français prize recipients; Oscar and Emmy winners; and many more award recipients besides. We’ve had German authors, Swiss authors, English and American authors, French authors, Bulgarian, and even authors from as far afield as Australia and Latin America.
Most importantly, we are making infields into the broader discourse that it was always my aim to provoke: Why and how are ooks still relevant in a society of ever-shortening attention spans and ever-easier technological shortcuts. To be clear, I’m no Luddite; books are no more valid or superior than the numerous other storytelling methods we enjoy today, whether those be a smart phones, laptops, TV screens, or cinema screens. In my opinion, they’re all valid platforms for the storytelling instinct that differentiates humans from other animals and from Artificial Intelligence — more on AI in a future article. We do, however, need to remind society that the traditional storytelling method of placing one word after another, one sentence after another, one paragraph after another and one page after another is worth preserving. The engagement, the timelessness, and the technology-proof shared humanity that the written (and read) word provides is unique. Or as the brilliant Booker Award winner, DBC Pierre said by way of the T-Shirt he wore on stage during his WoW Gstaad segment: “Read a Fucking Book.”
Yours Truly,
Thomas (Unedited)
