Engaging the World: Writing, Imagination, and Enactivism

Writing is not purely cerebral; it reaches out beyond the brain to engage the world. Two kinds of world-engaging processes are discussed here: a dynamic loop involving writing, reading, and writing again, and a second dynamic loop involving writing, reading to an audience, receiving feedback, and writing again. Several writers, including Flaubert and Nabokov, have discerned these loops, which have also been explored experimentally. I close by discussing the role that active engagement with the world plays in imagination.