By Hal Walter
When I spoke to my son’s 5th grade class back in September, I did a short reading from my book Wild Burro Tales. I had a little postscript in mind, and after the reading I asked how many of the kids want to be writers when they grow up.
I was expecting one or two to raise their hands, and I had some premeditated advice for them. What I was not expecting was to see a lot of little hands shoot enthusiastically into the air.
I was paralyzed briefly. I thought, really? This many kids want to be writers? What exactly will they write in this day and age of social media, online “news” feeds and Kindle Shorts? And who will pay them to do this writing? Should I warn them of the frustrations, the long odds of “success” … the pay?