The Symbolic Interactionist as Writer^*

Writing is one of the key features of the life and work of the symbolic interactionist. The foundation of good writing is the establishment of the self and identity of the interactionist qua writer. The best writers are those who write constantly – not necessarily in formal text form but also in term of journals, note-taking, and so forth. Writing does not retrieve our ideas from our minds and memories; it creates them as retrievable gems of our work. My argument is that, as symbolic interactionists, we have the opportunity, if not responsibility, to position the drama of everyday life in our writing because our respondents experience their everyday lives dramatically.