Authors discuss blogs

16:11' 11/07/2007 (GMT+7)

The conference on literature blogs VietNamNet Bridge – The Vietnam Writers’ Association’s HCM City branch has recently held a conference on blogs, which have been becoming a great channel for marketing works of literature. Attending the round-table conference were writers, bloggers as well as representatives of publishing houses. Though the theme was “increasing responsibilities and quality of literature blogs”, participants were too interested in the topic to stay close to the theme. According to writer Tran Quoc Toan, some writers are using blogs these days to market their own products. A good example is younger authoress Trang Ha, whose blog has become famous for its introductions of her translated as well as original works. Poet Cao Xuan Son said that the importance of blogs is that they are places where writers can gather readers’ feedback before sending their works to publishing houses. From such feedback, writers will be able to create works suitable to public tastes. Another advantage of blogs, according to Cao Xuan Son, is the absence of censorship. At present, bloggers, literary or otherwise, have quite a free reign with what they want to post on their blogs. Thus, not only young and Internet-savvy writers, but those of older generations are also exploring what their literature may have to do with blogs. But freedom may be as much an advantage as a shortcoming, said Hoang Dinh Giang, Head of the HCM City branch of the Vietnam Writers’ Association. He said that though it was a type of publishing, it lacked supervision, and this was causing certain negative effects. An example is that many literature blogs are used by people to call others bad names. Some introduce cheap and vulgar and low-quality writings which bloggers are thick-skinned enough to call literature. Most participants at the conference, however, agreed that it was next to impossible to manage blogs considering that 1 million new entries were being posted daily. According to writer Huynh Dung, this is the reason the Vietnam Writers’ Association should pay more attention to blog literature, discovering and encouraging writers with potential, and teaching all how to use blogs as a new medium for their creative works. (Source: SGGP, Viet Nam Net)