Influential Authors

Recently, Kat, who lives in Ontario, and authors wonderful blogs (including “Poetikat’s Invisible Keepsakes” and “Poetikat’s Blasts From The Past”), posted a list of 25 authors who had a hand in the forming of her writer self.  She ended the post by challenging several other bloggers to also reveal 25 author influences; she included me in that challenge, so here we go……

First of all, let me say, it is difficult for me to refer to myself as a writer, though certainly I am a blogger, and bloggers do write, of course.  Reading came very easy for me at an early age, and my list of 25 includes authors I enjoyed as a child, often reading their books over and over again.  Some on the list are from my years of choosing books at our high school library.  Not attending college handicaps me a bit, as my list does not include important authors of classic works and intellectual literature and/or poetry.  I feel very inadequate in that respect, but so it goes, and I certainly don’t have time anymore to catch up on the crucial reading I should have done years ago.  Goodness, if I tried to do that, there’d be no time for laundry, cooking, doing dishes, feeding calves, walking, taking photos……or blogging!

*

Drum roll, please…….here’s the list, for better or for worse, and in simple alphabetical order:

*

Louisa May Alcott

Bess Streeter Aldrich

C.W. Anderson

L.M. Boston

Gwen Bristow

Charlotte Bronte

John Bunyan

Frances Hodgson Burnett

Taylor Caldwell

Mary Calhoun

Beverly Cleary

John Fox, Jr.

Hamlin Garland

Laura Lee Hope

Carolyn Keene

Lois Lenski

Helen MacInnes

Robert McCloskey

Robert Louis Stevenson

Irving Stone

Elswyth Thane

Agnes Sligh Turnbull

Mark Twain

Leon Uris

Laura Ingalls Wilder

*

I was drawn to stories that lifted me to laughter or reduced me to tears, and storylines related to historical events, and, of course, mysteries.

Books such as Mary Calhoun’s Katie John series, and Homer Price by Robert McCloskey, I read over and over again……I loved them because to me they were hilarious!  Fifteen by Beverly Cleary was another book which prompted much laughter and I read it several times.  For whatever reason, I always felt that the best book I ever read was The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come by John Fox, Jr.  It must have contained all the facets I treasured in a story.

I still have the unabridged editions of Tom Sawyer and Little Women that my parents gave me for Christmas in 1965.  I was born in 1958, meaning those books were given to me when I was a second-grader, and I recall being very excited to start reading them right away.  It was slow going at first, but now in looking back, it seems that my brain/mind/whatever grew by leaps and bounds during the reading of those two books at that tender age.  Perhaps teachers knew how to teach reading better back then, too.  The entire group of girls I hung out with were voracious readers; we traded books back and forth all through grade school, sometimes almost fighting over who got what book next.

Truthfully, I don’t recall my parents reading to me much, though they might have in my toddler years and I simply don’t recall it.  I doubt that my mom read to me in utero.  To my parents’ credit, there were always plenty of books around our house.  I recall poring over Egermeier’s Bible Stories and a pictorial version of Pilgrim’s Progress, plus a series of books about John Deere tractors and implements that had faces and could talk.  Often, I would page through the Collier’s Encyclopedias, too.  My parents gave me a Revised Standard Version Bible when I was eight and the binding ended up worn out a few years later, not to say I read all 66 books, but probably came close, with Psalms and Proverbs being my favorites.

In my high school years, I absolutely loved Agnes Sligh Turnbull’s books. Maybe she developed her characters well, which is important to me when reading a story.  Its a slight if I’m not allowed to know the characters on a deep and personal level.

I love writing on the blog.  It would be very difficult for me to consider myself a writer, though.  Uncanny though it is, Ruth of the blog “Ruth’s Visions and Revisions” recently wrote a blogpost which very closely describes my own upbringing, and my resulting lack of expectations in many areas of life.  My experiences with my mother are almost identical to what Ruth went through with her mother.  I’m in complete awe at how clearly Ruth articulates that, and connects it to her own traits as an adult.  I wouldn’t expect to ever be considered a writer or that anyone would care about my writing.  Its just not wired into me.  Additionally, somehow I managed to marry a nonreader.  My husband can read, of course---he reads the newspaper and magazines---but he doesn’t read books, and thus doesn’t comprehend the love of reading, and the satisfaction of writing, and that someone might actually feel very drawn to doing it.  So, mostly, I keep those matters to myself.

*

Whew.  Ok.  Enough of that.  I’ll challenge one other blogger/writer to share her list of 25 influential authors:  Caution Flag of The Human Race 600 blog is a creative writing instructor and it would be fun to see her list!

*

Thanks again, Kat, for the challenge!