For years I stood in front of a classroom, trying—sometimes succeeding—to convince college students that they could and should write. I suspect that most of them were checking a box, composition–check, intro to lit–check. A treasured few have let me know, decades later, that writing, and reading were useful, even pleasant. We were together before the madness of the infant WWW, so I could see who slept in the back corner of the classroom and who chose to sit in the front row and converse about books, essays, even poems.

            Now I too live in our virtual world where I cannot often see the faces of my victims, I mean writers. And it’s not too bad, though it’s hard to shake the hand that got an A, but a lot more real-estate reached. So, tomorrow and Friday I will take the plunge and chime in on podcasts. After teaching freshman English that can’t be too scary. If you’re interested in what I might say, depending of course on what the host says, I’ll be on with Grateful Redhead tomorrow talking about climate fiction, and on Friday I’ll be with Josh Morris on “My Greatest Imagination.”