Now live: Endangered Alphabets Calligraphy. Can the art of writing save the written word?

Every single time I give a talk about the Endangered Alphabets project, one question comes up: What about cursive? Is handwriting still important? And what is its future?

This is more than nostalgia: it touches on a fascinating and paradoxical phenomenon taking place all over the world.

Just when we in the West are abandoning the art of handwriting or delegating writing altogether to AI, a number of minority cultures around the world are doing exactly the opposite–reconnecting with their pasts and their identities by teaching calligraphy in their traditional scripts. In Nepal, in the Philippines, in Bali, in China, in Mongolia, people are relearning the art of writing by hand.

The book I’m hoping you will make possible, Endangered Alphabet Calligraphy: Saving Culture Through the Art of Writing, will introduce these remarkable calligraphies–some on paper, yes, but some on palm leaf, some in bamboo, some in tattoos, some even in graffiti.

The results are more than elegant and beautiful; they are a way of reviving traditional practices, awakening muscle memory, reconnecting present with past through an art form that brings grace and respect to their culture and giving it a voice.

Which prompts the question, “Are they finding something important we are losing?”

Is it possible the art of writing by hand will be saved not by the technologies of the world’s digital powerhouses but by those who have had their own writing marginalized, suppressed, or even banned? Those who know at first hand how deeply it speaks to, and shows, who they are?

Many of you know my work. Two years ago I asked for support, via Kickstarter, to write a book that pulled together all my Endangered Alphabets thinking. That’s all I said about it; that’s all I knew at the time. It’s a sign of your trust that the Kickstarter met its goal of nearly $20,000, and that trust was not misplaced: the book became Writing Beyond Writing, which has been hailed as “a game-changer,” “unprecedented,” “a magical journey” and “a sustained love song to one of humanity’s most remarkable achievements.”   It has nothing but 5-star reviews on Amazon, has been used in college classes in the US and abroad, and has been discussed at conferences in America, Europe, Africa and Asia.

Trust me again, and I promise to deliver a book that is fascinating, visually stunning, and an adventure both in ideas and among some of the world’s most imperiled cultures.

Please back my campaign if you can, and please forward this email to anyone you know who is interested in languages, writing, and the future of the written word.

Thanks!

Tim