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Dave Eggers inspires youth to express themselves through storytelling

Bestselling author Dave Eggers believes helping young people learn to express themselves can make all the difference in the world.

The Marial Bai Secondary School in southern Sudan was funded by proceeds from Eggers’ book What Is The What.

Photo: David Levenson/Getty Images

Eggers speaks softly as we sit in the pleasant offices of McSweeney’s. Newspaper pages hang on the walls. The editorial staff of McSweeney’s literary magazine, Timothy McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern (published about four times a year with a circulation of 17,000), is working on an issue about how to keep newspapers alive. "Or, actually," Eggers corrects himself, "not just how to keep them alive, but how to make them thrive. It should be a business model from the ground up. It’s silly to put so much faith in advertising, so we need to put some control and some ownership in the hands of subscribers. You need to involve them, which will partly solve the cost problem."

Maybe newspapers can learn something from McSweeney’s. Thanks to what Eggers calls "a sometimes painfully realistic, not to say pessimistic, business model," the publisher has managed to survive and thrive despite the economic crisis. "We’ve never taken unnecessary risks, so we’ve always grown within our means," Eggers says. "I think more companies will start doing that, as I think that is what we need to learn from the crisis. It doesn’t mean you can’t take risks or try to grow, because you should. But it can be done smarter, more organically. When some of these giant newspapers die, we might find smaller, more nimble and more responsive media outlets. After all, whenever dinosaurs die out, new life forms that are smaller, quicker, more agile and better able to adapt flourish."

Eggers says the economy hasn’t really affected McSweeney’s "because we risk nothing. It dips a little bit. Some independent bookstores have a hard time. But some are woven very well into the community, with workshops and authors coming in. When things get rough, some people get even more involved."

And Eggers is eager to get more people involved—specifically, as part of his TED wish, in public schools. Students need "your open minds and your open ears and boundless compassion," he said in his TED acceptance speech. "Some of these kids just don’t know how good they are, how smart, how much they have to say. You can tell them. You can shine that light on them."

By giving kids extra attention, Eggers hopes to keep their optimism and idealism alive. There are a million ways to get involved, Eggers believes—from donating materials to helping out with homework. "Kids don’t often get that kind of attention," he says. "There’s something life-changing about it. What are these kids learning about society when random adults show interest in what they have to say?"

Eggers is convinced this type of one-on-one help is the way to bring about change—and the good news is, most people can fit it easily into their lives. "That’s the thought that keeps me sane and allows me to stave off the despair about the problems that still need fixing. You can’t despair that there are so many problems and we can’t address them all. Be glad about the work you’re able to do. When the idea of writing What Is the What arose, I didn’t think I would solve Sudan’s problems. But I thought, ‘All right, I have a little bit of the ability to address this issue by writing this one book, and that’s what I’ll do.’ And look, now there’s the school in Marial Bai."

Marco Visscher, Ode’s managing editor, buys all his eye patches and wooden legs from the pirate store at 826 Valencia.

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