Who knew? I didn’t. This post turned up this morning on Mastodon. Iceland has more published writers per capita than any other country in the world, according to Guinness. With a population of 300,000, that works out to at least 30,000 writers who have published at least one book. Incredible!
The theory behind this goes back to the sagas that are part of Icelandic history. According to the article that I will link to at the end of this post, these stories and tales weren’t written down until the 13th century. People had to remember them and continue to share them with their offspring. This is similar to the histories of Canada’s Inuit people. How important were they? Well those tales led archaeologists to the Franklin Expedition’s ships, Erebus and Terror. Although the historians ignored the Inuit tales at first, it turned out that they were completely true.
Now, let’s get down to business. This site is about you and your stories and tales. Your history is just as important as anyone’s. Will you publish a book? I’d ask you, “Why not?” but let’s take things a step at a time here. First, you have to start. Paper, pen or pencil or laptop, whatever you have, spend some time writing as often as you can. As you read through my posts, you’ll see that writing will help you mentally and physically. Do it for yourself. You’ll benefit from it in more ways than one.
Here’s the link to the Guinness Book of Records story: Iceland – Most published writers per capita.
You know, the stories don’t have to be your own history, right? If you were told folk tales or stories from your family’s past, write about them. Sure, it might be your own interpretation of that story but it’s important to get it written. My late wife used to tell stories to our children, all about ‘Buttons, Mack and Ballerina.’ She made them up as she went along and unfortunately didn’t write them down. I will ask my children right now if they remember them. If they do, get a pen and some paper!
This is my second post today. I forgot about the Iceland post I saw this morning? Why? Because I didn’t write it down!
Cheers! Thanks for reading.
Brian Mahoney
December 31st, 2024