Poetry is not a silent art. The poem must perform, unaided, in its reader’s head.
I hope to read a Harry Potter novel soon, to see what it's all about. I admit to being annoyed that many good light fantasy writers have had trouble getting published, in England and elsewhere, when it is obvious the readers were waiting for us all along.
Absolutists frighten me. During all the endless discussions on my blog about evolution, intelligent design, God, and the afterworld, numbering altogether thousands of comments, I have never named my beliefs, although readers have freely informed me that I am an atheist, and agnostic, or at the very least a secular humanist - which I am.
An allegory is not meant to be taken literally. There is a great lack of comprehension on the part of some readers.
That was asking a lot of my readers, I realized, but I was trying to write the novel I would most enjoy decoding.
But editors are still the world's readers. And thus the eyes of the world.
Believing in fate has probably always arisen in part because of the delights and terrors of storytelling. We have to realize--to learn--that in life we are not the readers but the authors of our own narratives.
Leaders are readers, and readers are leaders.
Blogging is different from both journal-writing and writing for print. It's more fun than either of those. The freedom to write whatever I want and the unmediated connection with readers are the payoff.
I've been thinking so much about writing as a gift to readers - and how newness of subject (place or topic or person) is one of the biggest gifts at our disposal.
If you would write emotionally, be first unemotional. If you would move your readers to tears, do not let them see you cry.
It is possible to argue that the really influential book is not that which converts ten millions of casual readers, but rather that which converts the very few who, at any given moment, succeed in seizing power. Marx and Sorel have been influential in the modern world, not so much because they were best-sellers (Sorel in particular was not at all a widely read author), but because among their few readers were two men, called respectively Lenin and Mussolini.
When writers stop believing in their own stories, readers tend to sense it.
I like the idea of a big caesura between the narratives, a space which readers can fill in with their own speculative history.
Readers are what it's all about, aren't they? If not, why am I writing?
Comics can really help kids become confident readers. They can teach kids the fundamentals - inference, tracking from left to right, learning how dialogue works. I want everyone to know what useful tools comics can be in helping and encouraging our kids to read.
I think [testing] has had a profoundly problematic impact on student learning. It must seem to students that their worth as individuals is equivalent to their test score. The stress the high stakes culture has on teachers is also highly negative and must surely impact students in a negative way. It also de-professionalizes teachers because it encourages them to be script readers, followers of rigid schedules, and to disregard the needs of the people they teach in favor of the scripts and schedules.
More and more the writer is aware of an international community of readers for whom dense language use and frequent local references are a hindrance. This seems obvious. I don't decry it or criticize it - it's just a fact.
Agents of disruption, subversion, sabotage and disinformation tunnelers and smugglers, listeners and forgers, trainers and recruiters and talent spotters and couriers and watchers and seducers, assassins and balloonists, lip readers and disguise artists.
I have realised just how important it is to readers to feel that fictional stories are based on reality.