For your consideration

(rothberg especially)

"That warm winter night in Tuscon. My reading was scheduled for the six-thirty slot by the University of Arizona. A few hundred people showed up-- old more than young, mostly brown. I liked my "them," in any case, for coming to listen, postponing their dinners. In the middle of a paragraph, a young man stood up to gather his papers, then retreated up the aisle, pushed open the door at the back of the auditorium. In the trapezoid of lobby light thus revealed, I could see a crowd was forming for the eight o'clock reading--a lesbian poet. Then the door closed, silently sealing the present. I continued reading but wondered to myself, Why couldn't I get the lesbians for an evening? And the lesbian poet serenade my Mexican-American audience? Wouldn't that be truer to the point of literature?"

...

"I think the new writer should not assume that there are going to be readers of her work. There are many writers of value today who are barely read and may turn to video games for their living. On the other hand, there are writers, in our nonliterate culture, who manage to seduce some portion of the reading world or, at least, Oprah Winfrey. In short, the writer should be strong. But to those who are crazed by the enterprize, and need to write, as they need to pee or eat or sleep, my advice will not console them or help them get published or read."

-Richard Rodriguez