by AIW President Claude Berube

Pubs. They took their name from Public Houses. When I lived in rural England, it seemed that every few miles there was a village of fifty homes, an Anglican church that dated from the 1200s and a pub that seemed just as old. There the regulars and even a few irregulars would gather where for centuries the pub served as a social center of the community. People met with their neighbors and traded stories about local news and gossip.

Before television, before radio, before telegraphs and newspapers and possibly town criers, pubs were the hub of information. The news made its way to the neighbors who carried it to other towns or vice versa.

Today’s version may be coffee shops. With their proliferation to the point that they seem to be on every street corner. Writers have been taking their laptops to the local coffee shop for several years now, typing away as they drank their white mocha, then using the wi-fi to get connected to the world and get ideas. But now they may provide writers new opportunities.

Are you looking for a meeting place for your writers group or book club? Local coffee shops offer a comfortable chair and nearby cup of joe. Or are you a blogger? Lately, I’ve attended a weekly local blogger’s Sip ‘n Blog. For one hour a week, the blogger discusses a topic of local interest with a special guest. During that hour, about a dozen local citizens have an opportunity to ask the guest questions. One guest was the publisher of the local paper. During the hour, the blogger also does a quick, regularly-scheduled five minute call-in to the local radio station. Imagine that hour as information reaches several media and personally reaches out to the citizens in attendance.

Have coffee shops become the new ale houses of old? Perhaps not yet, but as the print media industry faces growing challenges with diminishing returns, turning to an old establishment while employing one of the new media may be one way of getting your own blog started or revamped.

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Claude Berube is the President of American Independent Writers and teaches at the U.S. Naval Academy. The co-author of two books, he’s published over thirty articles in academic journals, popular magazines, and newspapers.