I am glad Jennifer brings up the readership, purpose & community concerns we discussed last week. I was thinking about the questions I asked and decided to pose them to some of the writers we are reading. I got an interesting response from Tyrone Williams who has said I could post it on our blog and who has also consented to be part of the blog. This comment is from an email to me of 10/4:

"It's great to hear from you, and I am honored that you are teaching c.c. Actually, it's interesting that you ask me this question about ideal/real "readers" because it is, for me, inseparable from my ideal/real "sense" of community, both spatial and temporal (as you noted for yourself). … I have been thinking about the question and related issues. Looking back on my work (I'm working on two manuscripts, one for Atelos), I realize that a lot of my work addresses--not surprisingly--other black writers and, more generally, the black public, though, like you, I often write without a sense of readership (Let's face it--c.c. is all about that), at which point I am, of course, writing about "me." My newer work continues to address other writers and artists, blacks in particular, blacks in general, but it also turns, more and more, on language, as if I am addressing the very language I use. Still, it's important for me to always keep some human being, however abstracted, in view..." -- Tyrone Williams

Laura