Books and Authors Which Led Me Down the Writer Path

As soon as I learned to read, I was a voracious reader. My mother took us to the library every week, and I think I read just about everything in the children's section. My favorites were stories about horses. Walter Farley occupied many hours of my childhood. My favorite book, Man O'War, I read about 5,000 times. The first story I ever wrote [I was about 8] was about a horse named Wesco. I don't recall anything else about it other than it was about a horse.

Wonderful as those stories were, they weren't what made me want to be a writer. The foundation was laid by such wonderful reads as Willy Wonka, James and the Giant Peach, Ramona the Pest, A Wrinkle in Time, The Phantom Tollbooth and Pippi Longstocking. I really loved Pippi. The spark came when my grandmother gave me a hard bound [which I still have and still read] Anne of Green Gables. Anne's adventures and imagination made me want to invent worlds like hers. It was around then stories began swirling in my head, inventing themselves over and over. Like they do now. Difference is, now I write them down.

The sparks which led me to science fiction were Arthur C. Clarke's 2001: A Space Odyssey. When I was younger I thought the title was 2001: A Space Oddity. lol Makes no difference. The story inspires me to this day. And, two of his short stories: The Nine Billion Names of God and Encounter at Dawn. More sparks came from Ray Bradbury and Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

What about you? What author[s] / book [s] inspired you to write?

The Spark Blogfest, hosted by Christine Tyler of The Writer Coaster.