March 4, 2005

 Writers are typically people who have an itch to write and a need to ponder. Both writing and pondering tend to be solitary activities, so it’s no wonder that many writers consider themselves very private people—people who cherish the relationships they have but are often not inclined to go outside their comfort zone and seek new ones.

 But writers are also faced with this dilemma: writing is, after all, communication. A poem or essay or book is an equation, and publication is the equal sign. Without readers, the equation remains unresolved, a dangling potentiality that serves no purpose and offers no satisfaction.

 So writers need readers, and need to communicate with readers, as well as other writers (who are also, of course, readers).

 Enter the Internet. It dawned on me some weeks ago that more and more, I find myself sitting down at the computer to find answers to most of my questions. When I read a book, it’s as natural as marking a page to “Google” the author and see if he or she has a web site. More often than not, there is one, offering not only information about the author but often about the book, the topic of the book, other books by the same author, events of interest to readers . . . and the list goes on.

 Author web pages and related Internet sites do for reading what DVDs now do for movies and documentaries: they take a discrete literary text and blow it wide open, integrating various parts with other texts, other disciplines, other people, other parts of the world. The implications for both reading and learning are awesome to contemplate.

 So anyway, here I am—perhaps the author of an article or poem you read recently, perhaps someone you chanced to meet at a conference or reading. Through the power of the Internet, you can find out more about me and my work, and if you choose, you can click here and tell me about you.

 What a world, isn’t it?