November is national blogging month, and here in Pittsburgh, we’re starting the month with an exhibit and awards party at Most Wanted Fine Arts. Bloggers where asked to familiarize themselves with another blogger’s work, ansd then create an award category for that blogger.

Before I talk about that blogger, I want to climb up on my soap box for a minute and talk about the importance of blogging. At a time when our culture is rapidly changing, and traditional news media is cutting back, blogging is one of the easiest and best ways for people who feel marginalized or unheard to give voice to their ideas, concerns, and issues. Blogging is Free Speech, and done in a way that can reach a large audience.

I loved participating in the Best if the Burgosphere project, as it brought to my attention “Wende Writes,” a blog by Wende Dikec. Wende’s blog is one I may never have stumbled upon  as her subject matter is so different from my own. As I dug into her posts, I was reminded at how easily we each curate and filter what we come into contact with, and what a shame if I had never read Wende. I’ll be honest, when I first looked at one of Wende’s post and saw how long it was, I almost didn’t dig in, but what a mistake that would have been. Our culture today seems overrun with short sound-bite snippets of stuff, that if it isn’t 300-500 words, it is easy to just pass by.

Wende writes these long and awesome posts that read like chapters in a novel. She paints great pictures with her descriptive sentences, and brings humor and humanity together in a lovely way.Many of her posts, are about Capone, her lab puppy who sounds utterly adorable. I was pretty quickly a fan, as reading about Capone reminded me of when our two lab mix boys, Alex and Rustin were that age. Capone and Alex share many similarities even if they look so different. Alex looks very yellow lab, while Capone is black.

By the time I reached the end of the post, I was happy and smiling. What an easy way to change your mood– read some good writing!

So much of our culture in general, and social media specifically, seems to be about being disengaged. We can like something or share, it, but what’s the point to all this commodification? What’s with all these things– blurbs and hashtags, and pics, and memes? It can all seem so impersonal.

Bloggers like Wende go against that grain, and share stories, ideas and experiences that are all about being personal and engaged. Bloggers like Wende write things that help slow down the commodification of our daily lives, and that’s a good thing.

Join me in some good writing, amd check out Wende Writes.