Audience Shmaudience

1/27/19

What brought me to wanting to be an English major was books. Reading is something that has been a huge part of my self-concept. I always enjoyed writing, but reading was what I got lost in. In the past few years however, writing has been what I found my release in, what I loved to spend my time doing. Always, aside from essays for school, has my writing simply been for me and whatever I needed it to be.

Fast forward to now, present day. All of a sudden I have to share my writing and be vulnerable and open.. not quite my strong suit. Last semester, for my LIBA 100 class, I wrote a poem for my creative presentation. Mostly because writing is the only way I express myself. But this was the first time that I had ever shared a poem of mine in a class, even in a group of people. As I found myself writing that poem, I found myself thinking of my classmates, my audience. I had never done this before… I had thought of the subjects of poems, sure, but never people as in who would be listening and hearing and absorbing my writing. I suppose this was the first time I had thought about audience in my own life rather than for a school assignment.

In “The Writer’s Audience is always a Fiction” it brings up points about the writer and the reader being able to be close to one another. The writer has the ability to bring the reader into the story, or to keep them at arms length. I love this narrative of the relationship happening between author and audience, I think it almost comforts me in how others will be reading my writing. If I can bring my audience and my reader close enough so they they feel it is our story, or even their story, then they can feel impacted and absorb the story or narrative in a whole new way. The idea that a few different words or phrases can help the relationship of the author and the reader become close and intertwined is beautiful and an artwork in itself.