By Joanne Bailey-Boorsma
joanne@wktv.org

According to recent statistics, the share of men reading for pleasure on any given day fell from 25 percent in 2004 to 15 percent in 2017, a drop of nearly 40 percent.

It was this decrease that caught the attention of resident Randy Otterbridge, the chief writing officer for Randy Austin Publishing and Media and the person behind this weekend’s “Men Who Write and Win.” The free event is Saturday from a 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Salvation Army Kroc Center, 2500 Division Ave. SE.

“I started thinking there has to be a reason for this,” Otterbridge said of the drop of readership during a recent Locally Entertaining podcast. Otterbridge admitted that people today are busy people with work, children’s activities, and other events, adding that men tend to be more “doers,” wanting to be outside and simply doing something.

“When you hear about reading and you hear about wealth, and readers are leaders and leaders are readers….[well] when I look at a book there is gold in it and we just need to shovel it out.”

Otterbridge decided to have an event focused on male authors and to celebrate what they are doing while at the same time encouraging others to write and share their story, he said. That event became the “Men Who Write — and Win!,” an author showcase and wrting-tainment event. Because men have a competitive nature, Otterbridge said he incorporated a competition element with the audience deciding who wins by clapping for the stories they like to who does well in sales at the event. 

Otterbridge has more than a dozen authors signed up for Saturday’s showcase covering a variety of genres from financial to children’s books. Along with readings, there will be presentations on how to get started writing, marketing and other topics.

Otterbridge said the event is not only open to men, if it was “I might only end up with two,” he joked. The event is open to anyone interested in writing, because the ultimate goal, Otterbridge emphasized, is to encourage people to write, not to worry about editing or anything else, but to get their story on paper. 

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