At one point in history, the writer acted as a menace, her words possessing tangible dangers. Ideas had the power of transgression; speech acts threatened to subvert. However, with the invention of “The Author,” writing has been drained of its beautiful danger. We no longer write to disappear, we write to become. We put the self before the idea and as a result, we have destroyed our only inherent sword. Join us for an Olio dedicated to analyzing and discussing Michel Foucault’s much-celebrated essay, “What is an Author?” We will learn about Foucault’s concept, “the author function” and its chilling role in the production of ideology and power. We will learn about the history of copy write law, and its role in inventing The Author. We will ask ourselves, why do we write? Is it the self that moves us to the pen? Or do the words have a will of their own, tricking us into writing so that they might exist? And finally, we will ponder Foucault’s exquisite, unending question on the nature of reader, writer, and text: “What difference does it make who is speaking?”