I’m currently working my way through curating a list of 20 blogs that I currently read (here are the lists from 2019 and 2018). Some will be the same, but nearly half are new entries.
The biggest challenge of writing this list is coming up with something new and interesting to say about each of the blogs and why they are important to me. I deliberately don’t read my entries from previous years so that my impressions can be fresh and spontaneous. While writing about each of the blogs, I’m reminded about what it is that draws me to writers and their work, and how they can rope me in over the course of months or years rather than from only one article.
The silent presence in the room is the effect of the pandemic, and how each one of these bloggers reacts to it, either in overt ways or otherwise. What keeps me coming back to them is how they offer a way forward that speaks to the individual, and is different than than the corporate (and ad-infested) worlds of traditional media on one side and social media on the other. Bloggers exist in a largely independent middle space, and speak to the promise of what the web used to be, could grow into once again, and still survives in its own vibrant space year after year.