A True Writer Must Write

  AUTHORSHIP  

 Age 13, Sharon Connecticut, 1957 

 To be a  poet  is a condition rather than a profession. 

 Robert Graves 

 At the age of thirteen 

 I knew this: 

Working draft (left) of The Tyger (opening line: Tyger Tyger burning bright) and finished poem with illustration (right). 

William Blake produced a large body of work but did not worry about his audience and was virtually unknown. Only years after his death would he be considered one of the great Romantic writers and painters.

 Whether my writing 

 was good or bad, 

 liked or disliked 

 was not important 

Orson Welles (right)

-- whose fictional radio program, War of the Worlds, caused a sensation -- 

being interviewed by writers and reporters.

 I had no choice 

 but to be a writer