The Wave
The Wave tells us how to create a future in which creativity, empathy, and social imagination are the primary forces in our daily lives. Everything in it is doable and practical. It is a road map to the future country we want to live in.
—Gloria Steinem
Reading The Wave feels like riding The Wave—you catch its power and delight in its natural force, as it supports you right up onto the beach of the future. Its vision is one you always had in you, but didn’t quite know it was there. It taps more than hope, it activates a kind of knowing, writ loud and clear, so we all can see what could be. It is as empowering as an activist’s handbook as it is provocative for entrepreneurs. Arlene Goldbard evinces what we innately seek, and what can answer the dilemmas that currently have us stuck. She has sharpened my vision, reframed my vocabulary, and let me know what comes after Occupy. The Wave is an elegantly complementary yin to the yang of The Culture of Possibility.
—Eric Booth, educator, author, senior advisor to El Sistema
The Wave was written to answer a question Arlene Goldbard is often asked: You say we are on the cusp of a paradigm shift, a radical change in worldview that will thrust art and culture onto center stage. What does that mean? How will the world be different?
The Wave is speculative fiction. In 2023, a young journalist, Rebecca Price, writes a series of articles describing an emergent cultural change that has been gathering force over the previous decade (even longer, some of her informants say). She draws on a range of examples unfolding in New York City where she lives. “The Wave,” her name for the Zeitgeist—the rising spirit of the times—catches on, entering common usage. In 2033, she is asked by an editor to revisit her findings and report again. The text includes notes to her editor, excerpts from the 2023 series, and new material she writes in 2033. The characters and stories are designed to draw in readers who may not be inclined to explore the same ideas in nonfiction form.
The author’s hope is that a glimpse of this possible world will spark other social imaginations: that readers will be inspired to add to the collective dream of a future worth pursuing, one that can override the dystopian self-discouragement that has become our daily fare.
Read an excerpt from The Wave.
If we’re going to end this fiscal madness and start rebuilding America, we’re going to have to get creative! We need a tsunami of music, film, poetry and art. The Wave is about changing the story to change the world. Buy it, read it, share it!
—Van Jones, Rebuild The Dream
Arlene Goldbard
Waterlight Press
135 pp
May 2013
Library of Congress Control Number: 2013937646
ISBN-10 0989166902
ISBN-13 978-0989166904
www.thewavenovel.com
To order The Wave in bulk (5 or more copies), email bookorders@arlenegoldbard.com for a price list.
To contact Arlene Goldbard about talks, workshops, and readings, send an email to arlene@arlenegoldbard.com
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