Why I Go Over

People in the UK still ask me why I go over to the US so much. I could give a whole list of reasons, including my love for interacting with audiences, the importance I attribute to writers from Africa (of various stripes and from a range of countries) being seen and identified as active and valuable contributors to the world's culture without disappearing under institutional labels like 'African-American' etcetera etcetera. However, the bottom line is very basic; in spite of my residence in the UK and my home in Ghana, my biggest audience (measured by the number of people who visit my websites, blogs, follow my facebook and twitter updates) is in the US. I think it's a matter of respect for authors to make themselves available to their audiences, because without them every author would be a person alone in a room doing weird things with words. That's why I go to the US so much.