For the past twenty years or so, the author has been fortunate to write for a fairly broad audience. While he was teaching, or running an educational program, or doing research, he was also composing opinion pieces or commentaries about the work he was doing. This process of writing with part of his attention on the classroom or research site and part of it on the public sphere forced him--would force anyone--out of familiar rhetorical territory. As a result, he has been thinking a lot about both the challenge and the importance of academics and other specialists communicating with the general public--and he certainly has been thinking about how hard it is to do this. The languages of specialization can be so opaque, and mass media are becoming all the more sound-bite and entertainment oriented. Serious consideration of serious issues is difficult to achieve. In this article, the author offers two moments from his own writing life that represent some of the tensions inherent in trying to write for a wider readership today. He also describes two courses he developed to help graduate students write for broader audiences. (Contains 4 notes.)