Meet the Director

Our Staff

Deborah Ayer

Director, The Emory Writing Center

Associate Director, Center for Teaching and Curriculum

I’m a collector, not of stamps or coins or expensive antiques, but of words. I love to read other writers’ words about writing. My favorite analogy was cooked up by a wonderful poet named John Ciardi: “Writing is like a kiss. You can’t do it alone.”
What does he mean that you can’t write alone? On the surface, writing is a supremely solitary activity. The writer sits in front of the keyboard or with pen in hand and goes inside his or her head to conjure up a scene or situation and the words to express it. Most writers would say that writing requires total concentration—silence, solitude, or, as Virginia Woolf puts it, “a room of one’s own.” The presence of another person in this room is a distraction.

Those who can compose in the presence of others—say, while sitting at Caribou or in a Parisian café--succeed because they’re able to tune out the world around them and live inside their own minds. How, then, can writing be like a kiss? A kiss always involves another person or at least (for the fetishist) an object. You can’t kiss alone, can you?

Maybe what Ciardi is talking about is that writing is always for an other. This other might be an actual person or an internalized one, like your mother or father, a crotchety English teacher, an arch rival, or, even, an anonymous “they.” Writers have to imagine an audience for whom they write; otherwise, why write?

The ability to imagine an audience fully—as flesh-and-blood people with definite likes and dislikes and ways of thinking about the world—is what sets good writers apart. With specific readers in mind, writers can choose the words and phrases and images that will speak most loudly and let their voices be heard.

Not everyone possesses this ability to the same degree, but everyone can learn how to do it better. And this is where the Writing Center can help. A writing conference is really a conversation between a writer and a reader--the tutor, who will tell you how your words and ideas are coming across: what seems clear, dynamic, or original and what seems confusing, awkward, or clichéd. The tutor will help make your audience real for you.

You’ll never need to write alone.


	Our Staff Deborah Ayer Director, The Emory Writing Center Associate Director, Center for Teaching and Curriculum I’m a collector, not of stamps or coins or expensive antiques, but of words. I love to read other writers’ words about writing. My favorite analogy was cooked up by a wonderful poet named John Ciardi: “Writing is like a kiss. You can’t do it alone.” What does he mean that you can’t write alone? On the surface, writing is a supremely solitary activity. The writer sits in front of the keyboard or with pen in hand and goes inside his or her head to conjure up a scene or situation and the words to express it. Most writers would say that writing requires total concentration—silence, solitude, or, as Virginia Woolf puts it, “a room of one’s own.” The presence of another person in this room is a distraction. Those who can compose in the presence of others—say, while sitting at Caribou or in a Parisian café--succeed because they’re able to tune out the world around them and live inside their own minds. How, then, can writing be like a kiss? A kiss always involves another person or at least (for the fetishist) an object. You can’t kiss alone, can you? Maybe what Ciardi is talking about is that writing is always for an other. This other might be an actual person or an internalized one, like your mother or father, a crotchety English teacher, an arch rival, or, even, an anonymous “they.” Writers have to imagine an audience for whom they write; otherwise, why write? The ability to imagine an audience fully—as flesh-and-blood people with definite likes and dislikes and ways of thinking about the world—is what sets good writers apart. With specific readers in mind, writers can choose the words and phrases and images that will speak most loudly and let their voices be heard. Not everyone possesses this ability to the same degree, but everyone can learn how to do it better. And this is where the Writing Center can help. A writing conference is really a conversation between a writer and a reader--the tutor, who will tell you how your words and ideas are coming across: what seems clear, dynamic, or original and what seems confusing, awkward, or clichéd. The tutor will help make your audience real for you. You’ll never need to write alone.