Beneath the debate over the canon, there might be some underlying misapprehension of what keeps "literature" alive.

For one thing, anything that anyone likes reading is keeping it alive. When you like reading, you keep reading.

The other part of keeping literature alive is making sure there are writers. And I have some rough news for teachers of English. Much as I loved mine, that's not what made me a writer. It's not where I learned how to write.

It's great to have cultural literacy, just as it's important to have scientific literacy (wash your hands, climate change is real, masks help, vaccines are important). And we can certainly spend some time on that—especially when we remember that culture is both broad and deep.

Most of the canon fails the broad test and therefore fails to bring us cultural literacy. It instead advances cultural supremacy, and if you don't believe me, well, then I'm glad you haven't had the pleasure of a white jackass telling you that achievements are all by white men.

So what teaches someone how to write? It's a very different kind of study, and one I'm pleased to engage in and support with my students at @VCFAWCYA. (An MFA isn't the only way to do this. I don't have one. I would like one, but that's another story.)

We have to study books closely not for their intellectual content, which the lions of Literature (sniff) are most preoccupied with. What moves you in a book? It's the emotional content, and how the wonder of ink on paper can make you believe in people who do not exist.

It's wondrous sorcery. You cry, you laugh, you get nervous, you feel frustration and rage. All of this stuff matters profoundly and yet it's not what students spend their time understanding.

This also implies a need for a wide variety of books. What moves me might not move you and vice versa. When someone has a powerful emotional experience in reading, they will want to repeat that. The more books a person reads, the more enriched we are by literature.

Rather than continuing to look backward and pretend that all the great books have been written, people who care about literature would put just as much investment in making sure we are raising new generations of writers, writing books that broaden and deepen the field.

This means making sure young readers get books that speak to them. Books written for them and about their lives. Writers start as passionate readers. Let us keep this in mind as we fret about literature. Eyes on the road ahead, friends.