Ong, Walter J. “The Writer’s Audience Is Always a Fiction.” Cross-Talk in Comp Theory, edited by Victor Villanueva and Kristin L. Arola, National Council of Teachers of English, 2011, pp. 55-76.

In the article “The Writer’s Audience Is Always a Fiction, Walter J. Ong asserts that writers “[have] to make [their] readers up, fictionalize them” (59). Ong validates his assertion through anecdotal information and references to various authors and their methods of interacting with their imagined audiences. His purpose is to explore how a writer constructs an audience in order to better understand the relationships between said writers and their audiences. I believe that Ong is directing his ideas to the academic community and writers in general. As a student and an avid reader, I found his ideas riveting at times, and excessive at others.