For most of the last ten years, Katherine and I have participated in National Novel Writing Month, an organized effort to encourage people to write a fifty thousand word novel during the month of November. A number of the works have been published and are available at KatherineLato.com

After several years of adhering to the original intent, I started to diverge. One year, I wrote a collection of short stories, each related to a novel previously written by me or Katherine. One of these was so well liked that it ended up being a draft of the first chapter of Making Family.

This year, Katherine and I both focused on short segments related to digital inclusion. Since November, Katherine has continued to edit hers and has posted a couple of her short stories on Critique Circle, a review forum for authors.

Some of the comments she received made clear the extent to which the digital divide is invisible to some in our society. Some readers thought the story must have taken place twenty years ago if a high-school student doesn’t have computer access and training. Others thought that lack of computer knowledge was only plausible if the character was seventy years or older.

Clearly, there is a need for improved understanding of the presence of the digital divide within some parts of our society. As a step toward this, Katherine has posted some of her short stories on our new Creative Writing page.

Feel free to share these with those in your local community to help raise awareness. And if you have stories or poems or songs on the topic of digital inclusion, please consider sharing them with us. We welcome the tales of clients which you can share, and which Katherine may be able to build into a short story.

For those of us involved daily in the work of digital inclusion, it can be shocking to discover those who aren’t aware of it as an issue, but increasing attention is another worthwhile goal to add to our plates.

Best wishes for a strong 2017.

Barry