The world’s oldest profession, storytelling is the vocation I’d admire the most. And this admiration extends to publishing and distribution. In fact, this prompt connects with the daily prompt-2026 “If you were going to open up a shop, what would you sell?” The first thing that popped into my mind was the horror tale “Needful Things” by Stephen King.
King’s cautionary tale got under my skin and made me re-think what I need from any store. Especially since the Needful Things shop proprietor wreaked havoc over the townspeople. Because “for everyone, there is a price.” Storytelling, in this case, shaped my behavior. I’d venture to say it changed quite a few people who read the tale.
I still possess the galley copy of the horror tale I got while working as a Marketing Assistant in Penguin USA’s Academic Marketing & Sales Department. And now that I look back on my entire career, I can say my 40-hour work weeks were rooted in the vocation of storytelling. So, why would I spend most of my life working with stories? It’s simple; the stories we tell shape civilization.
From the paintings on cave walls 64,000 years ago, to hieroglyphics on Temple walls in Nubia, to the oldest print story, The Epic of Gilgamesh, written Before the Common Era, storytellers are the recordkeepers of civilization. And as we see, storytelling isn’t limited to print – but we’ve put our stories on wax, and the music plays as the soundtrack to our lives. Our stories play out on the silver screen, and now some reside digitally in the clouds.
I could continue to make a case for why storytelling is my most admired profession. Instead, I’ll end with a simple quote about how storytelling keeps the peace of most nations on Earth.
“the pen and is mightier than the sword” .
playwright Edward Bulwer-Lytton in his historical play Cardinal Richelieu.
Art ∩ Mel 
Tell Me Something Good!