Reading Writers?

Can a person be a good writer if they don't like to read? 

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Adult Writers, Child Readers?

For our next roundtable, let's look at being child readers and how, if at all, that influenced us as writers. 

Were you read to when you were a toddler/young child? Do you remember favorites that you continued to read alone once you learned how?

Ef Deal: I wasn't read to, but I learned to read very young, three years. I read in secret by the wedge of light from the bathroom after bedtime. Then I found the town library was on my street and ripped through the children's section in six months. Got a library card before I was five. My dad was a reader -- of trash. 

Elizabeth Donald: I learned to read when I was three (or so I am told), so I don’t have strong memories of being read to, but I know I was. My earliest associated memories are of reading to my parents. In fact, I recall sitting next to my mother reading her a Berenstein Bears book and she suddenly stopped me and summoned my father. I had no idea what was going on and wondered if I’d done it wrong. 

Instead, my mother asked my father to please get the box of Nancy Drew books from the attic. They were her books from her own childhood, those older 1950s blue tweed covers with the silhouette of Nancy and her magnifying glass (which I do not recall appearing in any of the books.) Mom realized at whatever age I was -- 6, perhaps? -- that I was ready for chapter books. I dove into Nancy Drew and never looked back. 

From there I discovered Judy Blume, Black Beauty and The Black Stallion, fought beside Johnny Tremain, explored the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, climbed My Side of the Mountain and attended Sweet Valley High. Then Lois Duncan introduced me to horror, which eventually led to swiping my mother’s Stephen King hardbacks which I wasn’t supposed to read but I left the dust jackets in their places so she wouldn’t realize they were missing. When Star Trek: The Next Generation premiered I was hooked into Trek, and started devouring every tie-in novel I could find. Then it was, “Hmm, I like this Peter David guy. I think I should see what else he’s written…”

Jen Mulvihill: Yes absolutely, my mother read all the horse books to me, International Velvet, Black Beauty, Little Nick, all of them. Then she read all the Laura Ingles books to me. When I got older I started reading L. Frank Baum, I still have not read them all yet.

Scott McCullar: I don’t remember my parents reading to me as a child. Perhaps my Mama did when I was a toddler, but I just do not remember it happening in my life. Instead, she would have conversations with me and would encourage me in my love for art. I know my Mama gave me the Little Golden Books before kindergarten. I think I was more infatuated with the illustrations. 

When I was a little older in kindergarten circa 1976, my Daddy started buying me comic books as an incentive to help me learn how to read. At that point, I was this little blonde-headed kid with freckles from Tennessee living in California who still retained his thick Southern accent. The school out in Fresno wanted to put me into speech therapy classes to lose the accent. The other kids in class made fun of me constantly with my Southern drawl – especially when it was time for me to read the “I See Sam” yellow children’s books. I was so infuriated at the time at the other kids that I refused to talk in class and it impeded my reading development at that time. With that, comic books solved the problem and I became a voracious reader. By second grade, I was reading biographies of historical figures like Babe Ruth, Davy Crockett, Abe Lincoln, and others. 

John Morgan Neal: I have no memory of being read to. First reads were Batman comics. And S.E. Hintons's The Outsiders.

Gordon Dymowski: My parents instilled a love of reading from an early age - according to family legend, my father purchased a copy of ONE FISH, TWO FISH, RED FISH, BLUE FISH the day I was born. Not only was I read to, but I was encouraged to head to the local library when I was a kid. Between Chicago Public Library and my Catholic school, I read several series multiple times: Alvin Fernald, Danny Dunn, Tom Swift Jr...and eventually, Sherlock Holmes.

Bobby Nash: I don’t remember being read to as a kid. I probably was, but don’t recall. My mom did like to read so that got me interested in reading. She used to get the Reader’s Digest collections. It was there I read my first novel, The Snowbound Six. I was hooked. From there I went to Han Solo’s Revenge and comic books. Plus, The Monster at the End of this Book with Grover was a favorite.

Brian K Morris: Yes, my mother read an assortment of Golden Books to me. My father tried to read some of my comics to me, but he grew bored with the task. I don't recall any of the books from back then, aside from The Night Before Christmas (which I own several editions of), but I loved them a lot.

Sean Taylor: Absolutely. Both my Mom and my MeMe (grandma) read to me. And they were both always buying my books. I was fortunate in that all my sets of parents and grandparents (as a child of divorce and remarriage I had "bonus" grands) supported me in being a reader from an early age. When I was able to read for myself, I always went back to the ones I remembered most and best -- The Pokey Little Puppy, Never Talk to Strangers, The Sailor Dog, and How to Make Flibbers, etc. : A Book of Things to Make and Do. I still own each of them, and they are still barely holding it together after all the years of love I gave them. I hope to pass them down to my own grandkids and build memories of reading them together. 

Susan Roddey: My mother read to me every day until I learned to read. It was always my favorite part of the day. My absolute favorite book was called "There are Rocks in my Socks," Said the Ox to the Fox. I bought a copy of it for my own kids... they were not impressed.

How often did you read as a child? Where were you on the spectrum that goes from "lock me in my room with my books" to "please don't make me read"?

Bobby Nash: I loved to read. Comic books became a huge favorite. Spider-Man, G.I. Joe, Space Family Robinson, Star Trek, and the big treasury editions of Captain America, Battlestar Galactica, and Star Wars were constant companions. I read novels. Those small paperbacks of the 70’s were a big influence on me.

I hated being told what to read. That’s probably because I don’t like being told what to do.

Brian K Morris: I grew up in the country, so books, comics, and TV were my real friends back then. I learned to read when I was three so throwing me into my room with my reading material proved to be no punishment for me.

John Morgan Neal: All I needed was to be in my room with my comics and my toys to reenact or create new stories from the characters I loved. School introduced me to The Outsiders, Animal Farm, Nineteen Eighty Four, and such.

Gordon Dymowski: I read voraciously as a child, and my parents encouraged this habit. I read everything from catalogs and newspapers to books and comics. If there's a statement that describes my youthful reading, it would be "Go find a book and entertain yourself." (Keep your minds out of the gutter, people)

Susan Roddey: I started reading early, and have been a voracious reader ever since. I was the kid they punished by telling me I wasn't allowed to read.

Scott McCullar: After discovering comic books in kindergarten where I learned to read and moved on to other “real” books, I became a lifelong reader. I didn’t have to be “locked in a room”, I just instead took books with me wherever I went. To the living room on the couch. Outside under a tree. On the bus with me to school. Wherever I walked.

Jen Mulvihill: I read all the time. I would sneak books in school instead of doing my school work. I didn’t have many friends so I would almost always be reading. You could usually find me in an apple tree eating green apples and reading.

Elizabeth Donald: So I was the bookworm, the kid who had a book hidden in her lap for those long stretches of math class (and got yelled at by my third-grade teacher in front of the whole class for READING when I’d finished the math assignment. “You spend your whole day with your nose in a book!” It did not occur to me for years to question her priorities.) My parents gave up grounding me, as I didn’t watch much television and ordering me to stay inside and not go out to play? Gee darn. Being a shy bookworm with unruly hair and thick glasses, naturally I was a target for bullies (mostly male, the girls just ignored me). So hiding in the storage closet during recess (with a book) or staying inside instead of going to the park (with a book) was definitely me. Instead, if my parents needed to ground me, they grounded me from my books, which got my attention. 

Sean Taylor: I read every time I could. I would spend hours in my MeMe's front bedroom (we spent a lot of time with her) reading. The books got more complex and longer and I branched out more in non-fiction too. I would read every book I could get my hands on about sharks, snakes, spiders, or dinosaurs, and I devoured my set of Childcraft Encyclopedias too. And I went from re-reading the children's books to reading the illustration and abridged versions of classics (not to be confused with the Classics Illustrated comic book though I read those too) with an illustration every other page. I particularly enjoyed the Verne and Wells abridgments. That's also when I found my favorite book that I probably read at least 200 times between the time I was 7 and 15 -- The Adventures of Monkey by Arthur Waley. I was very much into adventure stories at the time. 

Mari Hersh-Tudor: We had a big family so we got sent to the library a lot to keep us out of mom’s hair. Alone with a book was infinitely preferable to getting bullied by sibs. I was reading Asimov and Tolkien by age eight. 

Did those early experiences help to instill in you a love of stories, and how did that reading stories bug transform into a telling stories and writing stories bug?

Susan Roddey: I've always loved everything about the written word. Even before I understood how to write stories, I would pretend to be a writer. It's always been a part of me.

John Morgan Neal: Not sure instill is the most accurate word. Awoked. Revealed. Because I think it was always there.

Brian K Morris: Being in the country, the only companions I had were imaginary. That's who I read to when I was younger. And the storytelling bug is still strong in me.

Mari Hersh-Tudor: Dr. Seuss first showed me what imagination can do. My imagination always took anything I read and made whole universes out of it. And never stopped.

Scott McCullar: By fourth grade, I was writing my own stories. I won a “Young Author’s” contest at school for my first story “Mice Wars” which was loosely based on the historical story of The Alamo with a cast of characters that were all mice. I would continue to write stories here or there in my spiral notebooks, but my other interest wanting to illustrate also pushed me in the direction of wanting to be a comic book creator who handled both the writing and art chores in his own work. 

I just loved storytelling in all forms. Whether it was books, comic books, illustrations, television, film, or even audio-only sources such as radio dramas, records, or listening to someone speak in a lecture, interview, or tell a tale around a campfire, etc.

Elizabeth Donald: I have always been a storyteller, in any form. From my very early childhood I was writing, way back to early-80s Smurf fanfic. I was never going to BE a writer, mind you -- you needed Dumbo’s magic feather and to live in New York for that, or so I believed. But books were absolutely integral to my childhood, developing my imagination, and entry drug after entry drug kept me in fictional magic. I wrote my first novel in high school and it was terrible, as most first novels are. And I rewrote it a couple of times in college, and it was still terrible. I wrote plays as a theater major and they were terrible. But that’s the gig, isn’t it? The more you write, the less terrible your writing. Every word you write -- and every word you read -- makes you a better writer, in tiny increments. Those baby steps start with the Berenstein Bears and Nancy Drew and end up with your name on the cover displayed in the front window at Borders. 

Jen Mulvihill: I really think it did have an impact on me. Especially when I became a teenager and started reading Science Fiction, I could not get enough. But now I see in my writing a little bit of influence of a mix of Baum and Heinlein. As a child and teenager, I used to make up all kinds of stories in my head, sometimes I wrote them down and sometimes I didn’t. I still have an old suitcase full of old short stories, songs, and poetry.

Bobby Nash: Oh, yeah. I started thinking of ways to do my own stories. I studied the books and taught myself how to write, how to create stories and characters, etc. That urge has not diminished over the decades.

Ef Deal: I couldn't separate reading from imagining, so I began writing early, and yes, because I was an avid reader.

Gordon Dymowski: Since I grew up as an only child, I relied on my imagination and curiosity to provide entertainment. One method was drawing stories on scrap paper my mother brought home from work. I think that experience shaped my ability to tell stories since I knew I could take characters from comics and translate them into rough narratives. It wasn't until college that I started writing short stories...and developed a large collection of rejection slips.

Fortunately, the past eleven years as an author helped me realize I have a knack for this whole writing thing. It's still a learning process., but I feel more confident in my abilities now than I ever did in the past.

Sean Taylor: I don't think there's any denying how important the stories I read were to making me want to tell my own stories. I did it with everything from paper to pencil to playing with my action figures. I never played with them correctly. Luke and Leia were never Luke and Leia. Nope, Luke was a swashbuckling hero while Walrus Man wore the Jawa's cloak and became an evil wizard who captured Leia (I was a kid. I hadn't learned yet women didn't need us men to save them.) and foiled Luke's plans with his giant robot (Mazinga) while keeping hidden in my Fisher Price castle with the secret trapdoor. That play became stories that still influence me to this day, hence my love of adventurous tales of heroes and heroines in outlandish situations. 

#MotivationalMonday -- Read a lot

How Much Do Writers Read?

Authors, how many books do you read per month? 
How much is fiction and how much is nonfiction?

Selah Janel: Depends on the month, reason, format, etc. If it's for graphic novels or manga, I can burn through like 20 volumes easy if I'm not doing much else in my off time. Or if I'm doing other stuff, probably half that. Novels or nonfiction, depends. Anywhere from 3-7 again, depending on how I'm using free time. I'm also reading a lot of genre and lit magazines right now, too, and those numbers are somewhere in the middle. For May I think I did probably 7 manga volumes, 5-7 graphic novel volumes, I'm finishing up a novel, one nonfiction, and two genre magazines.

Connor Boyle: I average 3 novels a month with several short stories in between.

Ernest Russell: It varies. 2-3 fiction and nonfiction; it depends on any research I may be doing.

Ellie Raine: I'm a slow reader, and it depends if I'm writing that week, etc. If I'm reading, I can't write my own stuff. if I'm writing my own stuff, I can't read other works--or else I'll never get the work done. When I'm at a good stopping point in writing is pretty much the only time I get to read, and I'll try to read it ALL before going back to work if I can. It's a really erratic and slow process, but it's how I get the work done while finding time to read as well.

Bill Craig: 17-20 books a month, mainly fiction but once in a while I'll read non-fiction.

Amanda Niehaus-Hard: My goal now is one fiction a week (so 4 a month), 1 non-fiction a month, and 1 poetry volume or a complete literary journal every two weeks (can be a re-read). I end up reading about one short story from an anthology every night, so sometimes I read one collection a month or one every 6 weeks. But we homeschool, so I have to read a ton of stuff for the kiddo, and I don't have goals for that beyond "keep up with his interests." lol.

Robert Krog: I usually read a chapter a night to the children from some classic novel or the other, so that’s one. I’ll finish a nonfiction work for myself and frequently a novel as well. Then, I’ll be rereading certain parts of other works at the same time. At least 4, I guess, volume wise.

Ron Fortier: At least 3 a month. All fiction. I like most genres, a la sci-fi, mystery or adventure. Will occasionally re-read what I consider classics, i.e. Burroughs, Heinlein or Herbert.

Mark Lee: 2-3 a month. A mix of classic and contemporary. Mostly nonfiction but I love me a good epic fantasy.

Kevin Noel Olson: At a normal pace, one or two a week. Lately, so much of my reading goes into reading and re-reading research material it's difficult to gauge. Also, I have about 5 books going at once, one of them being a ponderous book of around 1200 pages. Not to mention comic books, so I won't mention them.

Jana Oliver: 20+, the majority of which are fiction. I read fast. Only a rare, rare few make the Keeper Shelf. I'm an omnivore apparently. When I'm working on my own books, someone's else's shuts down the internal "chatter."

Barry Reese: About 6-7 a month, usually 1-2 nonfiction and the others are fiction.

Derrick Ferguson: I would say three a month. I'm a terrible backslider. I remember when I would read three in a week.

Bobby Nash: It varies. All fiction.

Janice Elliott Howard: I read fiction. 4-5 books a month and non-fiction 2-3 books a month. I write only 10-15 days out of the month.

Angie Gallion Lovell: I read 3-4 books month when I’m not writing. Mostly contemporary and fiction.

Greg Goode: Sometimes one or two a month, sometimes several a day. Nonfiction:fiction :: 80:20

Rob Cerio: Depends if you count graphic novels. Without, 1. With, about 7.

Jason Waltman: One or two mostly sci-fiction, dark modern fantasy or new pulp. I not counting any role-playing game book because they're work-related.

Brian K. Morris: My reading schedule involves an average of five a month, usually 3 fiction, 2 non-fiction (often to do with publishing because I can always stand to be a lot smarter than I am).

Marlin Williams: As of lately, about two. All of it is fiction. It's a fifty-fifty mix between contemporary and classic. I just finished reading Ravenwood Stepson of Mystery collection of short stories by Frederick C Davis.

Danielle Procter Piper: I read a lot less because I'm a lot busier now. I've been reading mostly nonfiction the past few years, but I make time for the newest Agent Pendergast novels and Serge Storms.

Andrew Salmon: 10-15. Getting the Eby Stokes series launched, it's been more research than fiction and the fiction is usually tied to Eby's genre. Still I try to squeeze in some fun reading though.

Neen Edwards: I read all fiction... depends how much per month. Last month I read 17 I think. This month, I'm on my fourth book because I'm doing a review for someone and I have no clue what's going on in the book.

Matt Hiebert: Just two or three and a few short stories (which puts me somewhere close to last in this crowd).

Ed Catto: About one and half books a month lately.

Perry Constantine: Before, about one or two a month. But lately, due to all the sales that have been on ComiXology, I'm pretty much only reading graphic novels and TPBs. Lately when I do read a book or prose story, it's usually non-fiction or it's something I'm reading to teach in my lit class.

Nicholas Ahlhelm: I spend as much time with comics and graphic novels as the pictureless kind of books. I usually read somewhere between two and four prose works and probably a dozen graphic novels (at least) in a given month.

Jenny Reed: It varies wildly how many I read. Mostly fiction over time, but the percentages vary wildly from month to month, too. Both classic and contemporary.

Tom Hutchison: I haven't read a book in years. If I read it's a comic or more likely reference for whatever I'm writing at the time.

Adam Garcia: Depending on the length of the book, amount of free time I have, etc. 1 - 4 books a month, mostly contemporary with some classics sprinkled in.

Stuart Hopen: I'm all over the place. Typically I'll read five or six books concurrently unless something really grabs my interest, and then I'll put everything else down. I read fiction and nonfiction, but more of the former. And everything from golden age comics and pulps to Joyce and Shakespeare. Currently, I'm reading Infinite Jest, Will Durant's Story of Civilization, Foucault's Madness and Civilization, and Mike Cary's The Unwritten.

Lee Houston Junior: At least two library books a month and whatever I accomplish every night on the Kindle before I go to bed, so I'd say a monthly average of about 5 or 6 easy. The genres vary between books because I like variety, but mainly sci-fi, fantasy, detective/mystery with other stuff thrown in from time to time.

Trina Robbins: Typically 1 -4 books per month, depending on the length and how hard./easy to read. Heavier on the fiction than the non fiction, but I'm always reading. As soon as I finish a book, I start another one. Currently reading William Gibson's The Peripheral, and that man is hell to read, so it takes me longer than most writers because I have to keep going back and rereading parts so I can figure out what the hell he's talking about.

Van Allen Plexico: I have stacks of books all over the house, not counting the ones on my various bookcases, and am always reading from different books depending on what I’m in the mood for that moment. So it’s hard to quantify it. 1-2 dozen probably. They run probably half and half fiction and nonfiction. I also have tons of comics from the 1970s on my iPad and read them all the time.

Steve Ekstrom: It varies... I just don't stop reading and/ or writing. I rarely lean into any classic literature but when I do it's like a headlong deep dive into something really dense.

Keith M. Weller: Four to 5 books a month, all depends on what I'm in the mood for.

Kalesjha Madsø: Depends on length of the books, but around 8 to 10 a month. I read high fantasy mostly.

Bethany Hoeflich: 20-40 books a month. Maybe 4 or 5 nonfiction and the rest fiction. They are a mix of genres from fantasy and sci-fi to romance and horror. And most are contemporary. I like to stay up to date with the trends in fiction.

Gael Figueroa: 3-6 depending.. split between non-fiction and fiction.

Goalie Benkers: About two to four. I prefer sci-fi and fantasy but I read everything. Just finished Jane Eyre and really loved it. I'm still in awe of the writing style; very complex and deep. Right now I'm reading a mystery thriller. It's not bad.

Brett Kihlmire: Depends on the length and available time. I've read 14 of varying size since the start of the year. I'm halfway through a 300-page Star Wars novel right now.

Barbara Goode Bodnar: Around 10. Lot of mystery, biographies.

Gabi Balend: I honestly don't read a lot of published books anymore. I mostly read fanfiction stories these days (there are a lot of really well-written ones out there if you know where to look). I honestly couldn't tell you how many I read every month - I don't keep track of my reading like that. In the past, I primarily read science fiction and fantasy, although I did enjoy nonfiction science books as well (Cosmos, A Brief History of Time, The Elegant Universe, The Fabric of the Cosmos, etc.).

Demetra Had: One per week is my standard for fiction. Last month was crazy, I've read 12. I don't read non-fiction anymore, instead, I listen to audio books while doing other things to save time ... At least one non-fiction audiobook per month

Marianne Reese: 5-10 all genres. I like to read and support indie authors so I make sure I read several indie books a month. I do, however, read traditionally published authors, too.

Michael Grant: 1-10. All fiction. Mostly contemporary.

Eileen Troemel: It varies... I read anything. I read Audacity, which is a biography poetry book -- the author wrote poems to describe a Russian's work in the union -- early Russian refugee... and Quiet which is an interesting study of introverts. I've also read JD Robb, Anne McCaffrey, Kathy Lyons, Anne Bishop, Rebecca Zanetti... and a whole bunch more. My reading is sporadic -- when I feel like it I read.

Joe Noble: About 50 books a year on average, changes from month to month how many I get through.