Writers and readers a married couple
and one of the questions writers always have:
Who Will Read This and How Will They Find Out
about my story my memoir my poem.
Many Writers have Reader Desires:
I want my reader to be fully versed
in Alice Munro, Toni Morrison, James Joyce,
and some relevant young people as well as
be a lifelong subscriber to a few esoteric
publications and of course The New Yorker.
They want their readers to wear Good Shoes
and have series conversations about The Wire
and to wear silver not gold and never to drink Chardonnay
and not to take humor seriously.
My first reader was my babysitter
Eva Balco whose husband Jake worked in a factory
and so did she. I wrote a story in longhand called What Maryellen Did
(she smoked behind the Spakowski garage, and the story was
based on truth) and Eva Balco was such a satisfying reader
although she was not a devotee of the literary life
Eva Balco was such a good reader that I’ve written
for her ever since.
Lived loved loved this, Esther
I don't even want to share how ill-equipped I am to be your reader (had to look up Alice Munro and shook my head in shame; then went down a rabbit hole about her work as it appeared in movies. It's all your fault.) Now, I need to get back to my writing, thank you very much. Just keep this between us, okay?