• Kim Herbst

The world might be changing faster than we can keep up with it, and sometimes it feels like the written word could be on the verge of becoming an endangered species. But if you look a bit deeper, you'll see that we need and cherish writers, storytellers and books more than ever. They're a way of helping us understand this changing world, making us laugh, cry and think whether we're in front of a computer screen, watching writers read their own work or curled up with actual old-school pages.

For our annual Fall Arts Issue, we've chosen to focus on those who live by the book. Join us for a visit with the award-winning Salt City Unified slam poetry team. Learn about how a local organization creates places for aspiring writers to make their literary dreams come true. Take a tour of independent booksellers who still thrive along the Wasatch Front. Catch a glimpse of Salt Lake's craft printers. Then, make plans for your artistic year with our 2018-19 performing arts calendar, and prepare for this week's Urban Arts Festival.

What's the good word? Let us point you toward a whole lot of them.