From as soon as I learned to read I knew that books held thousands and thousands of lives that I could step into just by opening the covers. I have never understood a person who would choose to live a single life when they could live hundreds of different lives. And as for a writer who does not read - for me that is a person who cannot be taken seriously. Books are your school. You can attend as many writing workshops and MFA programmes as you like, but if you do not read, your writing will show it. It makes no sense to me.
I decided to ask some of my writing friends the question: “Why read?” Below are their beautiful answers. “To develop a critical skeleton. As someone who struggles to read recreationally, preferring theory or critical opinion driven writing, I read because it keeps me thinking of multiple approaches to subjects. However, when I do sit with a casual book, it also adds to my conception of self and my library of imagery, metaphors, and expressions. It gives me the opportunity to discover how other people express things that I have felt or experienced but never had the words to use. That’s why, for me, reading is necessary.”
