*From time to time, I’ll post a “conversation thread” a.k.a. something like this. The idea? Reply, chat, and converse with fellow readers and writers.
This morning while reading an essay by the novelist Jonathan Franzen on his experience with creative self-doubt, I stumbled upon an interesting section breaking down “types” of readers.
The types were decoded by Shirley Brice Heath, a former MacArthur Fellow, linguistic anthropologist, and professor of English and linguistics at Stanford. Throughout the eighties, Heath hung around hot spots for readers — buses, trains, airports, bookstores, seaside resorts, writers conferences, creative writing programs — where she conducted interviews focusing on bookish habits.
For a person to sustain an interest in literature, Heath concluded, two things have to be in place.
First, the habit of reading works of substance must have been "heavily modeled" when the person was very young. In other words, one or both of the parents must have been reading serious books and must have encouraged the child to do the same.
Simply having a parent who reads is not enough, however, to produce a lifelong dedicated reader. According to Heath, young readers also need to find a person with whom they can share their interest.
“A child who's got the habit will start reading under the covers with a flashlight,” Heath said. “If the parents are smart, they'll forbid the child to do this, and thereby encourage her. Otherwise she'll find a peer who also has the habit, and the two of them will keep it a secret between them. Finding a peer can take place as late as college. In high school, especially, there's a social penalty to be paid for being a reader. Lots of kids who have been lone readers get to college and suddenly discover, ‘Oh my God, there are other people here who read.’”
Hold on, Heath. What about people like me? Reading was not “heavily modeled” in my household. It wasn’t a habit passed down from parents or grandparents, aunts or uncles. Rather, it was something I happened to take up and love. It felt right.
Franzen noticed the discrepancy, too. He also found reading on his own. The section continues.
Without missing a beat, Heath replied: "Yes, but there's a second kind of reader. There's the social isolate — the child who from an early age felt very different from everyone around him. This is very, very difficult to uncover in an interview. People don't like to admit that they were social isolates as children. What happens is you take that sense of being different into an imaginary world. But that world, then, is a world you can't share with the people around you — because it's imaginary. And so the important dialogue in your life is with the authors of the books you read. Though they aren’t present, they become your community.
According to Heath, readers of the social isolate variety are much more likely to become writers than those of the modeled-habit variety. If writing was the medium of communication within the community of childhood, it makes sense that when writers grow up they continue to find writing vital to their sense of connectedness.
Fascinating. So I’m a social isolate, huh? There’s something comically edgy about the title, the Literature department’s synonym for rebel, outcast, punk, anarchist. At my next social event, I’m tempted to respond to someone’s greeting with, “Don’t talk to me, man. I’m, like, a social isolate.” Then produce a book from my pocket and begin reading.
Joking aside, these reader types are interesting to contemplate. In my experience, they apply. Or, at least, the social isolate thing does. I did feel different. And when I read, I did love marinating in that different-ness within imaginary worlds. I did — and still do — feel that authors who were long dead or who I’d never met were my community.
Which brings me to my question du jour.
How did you develop your reading habit? If you agree with Heath’s types, are you a modeled-habit reader or a social isolate reader? Or are you something else entirely? 📖
My Mom taught English and History in high school and my Dad worked for a national newspaper. I grew up in a home where reading, learning and writing was valued above material things. We were not poor, but I can count on one hand the number of times we ate in a restaurant or hailed a taxi cab. Our lives were filled with love, delicious home-cooked food, an appreciation for the power of the pen, critical thinking and lively debates about world events.
During the summer holidays we ran a free library out of our home for the neighborhood kids - books, comic books, magazines etc. It was widely used by kids and teens.
One of my earliest memories is lying down on the cool tiled floor on holiday and Summer afternoons reading until I fell asleep to the gentle afternoon breeze. Would wake up refreshed, have my tea and afternoon snack and then head out to play soccer until dusk.
Nowadays, I read mostly online - phone, ipad and Mac. I do more book reading while I am on vacation..I can crank through a Vince Flynn or a Douglas Preston in 3-4 days while I am beachside.
What an absolutely beautiful childhood. Thanks for creating that image for me. The kitchen scene. The nap. The cool breeze and the cold tile. Soccer at dusk.
I, too, read a lot online. It's just easy. But also, more distracting. I much prefer reading physical books.
Again, thanks for sharing. The power of books to sustain is unlike anything else.
Thanks for a thought-provoking post, Matt. You know, I don't remember being read to as a child (sorry, Mom!), but I must have been, because my love affair with books began early and oh-so-intensely. I remember with overwhelming nostalgia the book fairs at school, the delivered-to-the-classroom books chosen via Scholastic Book Club magazines (yes, I'm that old), and all the books I treasured and read until they fell apart (Misty of Chincoteague, Charlotte's Web, The Phantom Tollbooth, A Wrinkle in Time, the Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle series, every Peanuts book ever printed, Old Yeller, the Curious George books, Babar the Elephant, Madeline, the Hardy Boys series [nope, not Nancy Drew], and oh god, my beloved Dr. Seuss, and so many more). My mother took me to the library frequently, a habit we continued during our summers in Vermont. We'd show up at the library in small-town Orleans in late June and the librarian would be overjoyed, because each week for the entire summer my brother and I would cart off stacks of books, and we'd read every one. I can't remember a time when reading wasn't my favorite pastime, and I passed on that love to my own sons by reading to them from the day they were born and throughout their childhoods. So what kind of reader am I? A passionate one.
Ah yes! The scholastic book fair. I remember these too. They transformed the school library. It was a lot of fun. Thanks for sharing :) That was a nice little flashback.
I think I, too, am a passionate reader. That should be it’s own category.
One of the few early childhood memories I have is of sitting on the floor of our local public library in Detroit, MI looking for "Madeline" where it was always kept on the bottom shelf. Every week I wanted to check that book out. I was very shy and I loved reading books. I can still recite it, word for word.
When I went to kindergarten down the street from our house, I obsessively checked "The King's Stilts" - one of Dr. Suess's lesser known books - out of the school library. When my parents decided to send me to a Catholic school for first grade, our neighbor, Mrs. Dixon, who taught at the elementary school down the block (I was afraid of her!) came over and gave me the copy of "The King's Stilts."
I don't remember my parents being avid readers when I was young. But, when I was grown and married I started to notice that every time I went to visit my parents, my mother had a stack of library books and she was always reading. Likely, she was just too busy raising four kids to be the avid reader she probably longed to be.
Many many years later, I was divorcing and moving out of state. My grown children didn't want the children's books and so I took them with me. But, I couldn't find the old copy of "The King's Stilts." A few years later, I received a package in the mail. It was from my ex-husband. He had found the tattered yellow-gold copy of the book in the attic, with the Emerson School Library stamped inside. :)
Thanks, Matt, for taking me down reading memory lane. I admit to reading and writing on the computer way more than I want to. I need to get back to snuggling with a real book. Winter is Coming :) and so it shall be.
Definitely going to check out that essay later; I love Professor Heath’s idea of hanging out in “reader” hot spots and interviewing people. What a fantastic way to really understand what people are reading and enjoying and have it directly from the source!
I feel like I am many kinds of a reader and each version of a reader comes through depending upon what I am reading. A big, serious and intimidating work requires a much different reader then going through a beloved much read story. Physical books will always be my number one, but I can’t deny the joy of audio books and my kindle either. Great writing today! 👏🏻
I do love the thought of a social isolate as a rebel, that really intrigues me. As for myself, I am probably a little bit of both types, maybe.
Mostly I just love words. My parents claimed I spoke in full sentences when I was 9 months old. (They also claimed I did so because I had to get them to pick me up so I wouldn't have to learn to walk.) Anyway, my mother read to me, and my father told me stories from his work in the fields and in the woods, where he might or might not have met little people, trolls (not the internet kind), fairies, and strange creatures from other planets.
At four, I had somehow learned how to read, at six I read Anne of Green Gables and other books like that, and at nine I read through the Bible from Genesis to Revelation. I also read a book on teenage psychology - I figured it would come in handy when I turned 13. When I did, I realized my parents had not read the book, and that I wasn't your typical teenager anyway.
All that to say: I love words, I can't not read and I can't not write. I was absolutely influenced by my parents, and I was a flashlight reader, as well as a rather different little girl who loved to walk into those other worlds and found it sad to have to leave them when the book ended. Whatever box that puts me in, these days I'm a very round old lady, and the box is probably square, so...
Okay, first to answer your question. Yep - this resonates with me. I'm bookish. I even thought of starting a business "A Bookish Collective" when I imagined myself fleeing the nursing and healthcare scene. As I've processed that (through writing and counseling) I don't feel AS PANICKED about Healthcare (capital-H). But, I also DO feel CALLED.
Books have called to me since as far back as I can remember. My mom has been a reader for longer. My dad remembers the night he met my mom (his buddy's sister), reading a book on the couch, and how he left to break up with his girl friend so he could ask her out. (Thank you, by the way, for shining a light on something I've never noticed there!).
I'm looking forward to reading your other posts as time and energy allow. This was very intriguing and just the right length for my tired distracted brain!! Also, love the format. Reminds me of George Saunders' "A Swim In A Pond In The Rain". What a neat take on literature! Keep it up!
I'm neither. Neither of my parents reads, and I don't identify with the "social isolate" type. I honestly don't remember how it all started. My first memory is of already enjoying reading, so I kept doing it. I read books in Thai (my native language), then in English. I went from fiction to nonfiction, then back to fiction again. Reading was just an activity I enjoyed. I didn't have many activities nor friends as a child, so I just doubled down on reading as something to do that I liked.
I come from fine immigrant stock, where English was a second language. My father taught himself English before coming to Canada from Holland in 1956. (He'd also learned German during the war, but that's another story.) My mother had to learn English from her children, who were 7, 8, & 9 (the other two didn't count because they were 4 & 2, and I wasn't even born yet.) It took my mother a long time to learn to read English. She did manage to read one book during the course of her lifetime: GONE WITH THE WIND. But, my father, well, he'd always been an avid reader. And I suppose that's where we kids picked it up. He always had a book in his hands. I was the artsy-fartsy one in the family, thinking I'd be an artist. But then I started writing poetry when I was around 15. (I'd recently discovered Kipling.) I remember when I brought THE THREE MUSKETEERS home from the school library and my father said he wanted to read it. I said, "But I thought you already did?" His reply made so much sense. "I did, but that was a Dutch translation, now I want to read the English translation." I never forgot that.
I still read. I've been collecting books all my life it seems. My first big purchase was Encyclopedia Britannica, which was, unfortunately, a year or two before the first personal computer came out. But I have my own study now, with nine bookcases full of hardcovers, and only a single shelf of paperbacks. Nothing beats the feeling of holding a book in your hands and having the time to do nothing but read.
Matt, interesting question, and I was just thinking about kinds of writers, and how I'd classify myself. I didn’t seriously want to be a writer when I was young, but it happens that I've gotten into literature and writing in my mid 70's. Now, seven years later, I've done a lot of novel and verse writing, about four hours or more every day, and I've been making an informal study of writers along the way. So here's my view: I think that being a writer is a particular calling, which I didn’t have in the day. A person called to be a writer is born with a lyrical sense about experience, and this sense is wrapped in a love of, and an ear for, words.
I think the distinction Shirley Brice Heath makes assumes one has this sense and ability, and goes on from there. It seems to me that her distinction is rooted in the temperamental poles of extrovert and introvert, which are broad ways in which that calling plays out in individuals. (I'm an introvert.)
As a kid, I had a different calling: I was intensely interested in the (big) ideas by which people understand the world, but not the kind of understanding you can get in narrative. At fifteen, I was fascinated by philosophical ideas and aquatic biology. I didn’t want to be a philosopher, but I wanted to ferret out the big ideas, and it turned out that aquatic biology contained the essence of my lyrical view. In those days, I soon discovered the gum rubber face mask, snorkel and fins, which were just making their way into Michigan, and I became an avant-guard diver, exploring lakes and rivers, usually working by myself, an isolated individual. I lived to get under the surface of living waters; it was entering "another world", much like what, I learned, later in life, that reading a good story is for a person. (Reader and writer.)
The only literature I've studied in was German Literature which I took because, in those days, you had to pass a German language test to get into graduate school to pursue a doctorate in biology. It was German Literature that planted a seed of serous interest in reading and writing literature. (I liked some of Schiller's poetry and plays.)
My calling to start writing narrative began when, one day in 2015, my grandson said, "Granddad, why don’t you write a story about that?" I was boring him with some philosophical scientific account of something. The next day I started writing a narrative story ("A Tale of Two Times"). Of course, starting so late in life means that I have a meager wordsmith's toolbox, but I've discovered a word wise editor in my wife, an English major, who really brings out the magic in my rough-worded narrative.
To return to the lyrical sense that I'm sure a writer must have to have a genuine calling to writing, the analogous lyrical thing for me was modeled by my desire for the "magic" of the underwater world. Scientific study of aquatic organisms in their habitats was to me an excuse for visiting that realm. In the same way, writing has to be more than making a living, because you have to want to live within the magic realm in which your narrative grows.
I am definitely a social isolate reader. I was shy and my father was in the army, so we moved every 2 years or so. I had no friend until I was in high school and then I only had one. My parents weren't readers. None of my family read seriously at all, so I didn't discover serious books until high school. So I don't know how I ended up here, a reader. I read mainly escapist literature, which meant historical romances and science fiction, mainly. Sad stuff was too painful. But I devoured books. I couldn't start one without wanting to read it straight through.
My mother was a voracious reader, my father an occasional reader. My mother read novels of all types, my dad mainly short stories. He loved the writings of Jack London. I grew up in a household that valued literacy. My mom hated the comic books we read on the sly. I came to realize that reading was good for entertainment and knowledge. The TV was not a replacement for the written word. It never will be.
My grandmother gave me condensed classics as gifts, but she read things I wasn’t interested in. School helped. I liked most of what we had to read for school, especially Dickens, Lord of the Flies, and Shakespeare. I stared writing very young, too, in fifth grade, so reading kind of goes with that. But the first book I really bought on my own and really got into was Dragons of Autumn Twilight. That got me into all those other D&D novels and then fantasy and sf novels. I think I bought it because a kid in my class was reading it and I thought the cover was cool.
Great piece Matt! Thanks for sharing. I am definitely a social isolate. My parents didn’t read much, and felt I was never able to share my worlds of imagination with them, siblings or peers. Funny enough I too am now a writer, and feel connected to this medium much; I am currently writing a thriller and write my own substack where I share my perspectives on life. Thanks for the content! Cheers
I wrote a big, long response to your question explaining why I didn't feel like either a modeled-habit or social isolate reader. But in the process, I realized that I'm basically the latter. Except for one key thing: I didn't do much reading as a child.
Despite this, after a little writing and reflecting, a specific part of the "social isolate" description helped me realize I belong in this camp: I definitely lived in my imagination a lot. It took me becoming a teenager to start feeling a real kinship with writers (and songwriters), but that becomes more part of it as I get older.
I think I leaned away from the "social isolate" label at first because it sounded quite harsh and because I was, and still am, quite a social person. But I also feel like I'm different from other people, and always had mixed feelings about social experiences. And again, that "imagination" element. All in all, I think I fit the mold relatively well.
I don’t remember seeing my parents read, but our house was filled with books and we didn’t get a TV until I was 12, so what choice was there? I read everything on the shelves--way too much of my dad’s stuff, including Carlos Casteneda and Ram Dass and other hippie stuff--and then grabbed hold of historical fiction and spy novels and I was off to the races, been reading for a minimum of an hour daily (and usually much more) ever since. What mystifies me is that my brother, raised in the same environment, reads not at all. He brags to this day that he can go years without reading a book, despite being a college-educated professional.
I think I'm a hybrid of those. Maybe social isolate at first reading great adventure and sports stories in Field & Stream and Sports Illustrated magazines - and then Jack London, Barry Lopez, Thomas McGuane, Jim Harrison, et al. Later I noticed friends and family members were able to discuss great books/stories I hadn't read, so I felt left out! Hopped into the broader world of literature more fervently which was when I become hooked. My father was a biology teacher and mom ran a college bookstore, but ironically we had very few books of note in the house when I was growing up.
I must be a social isolate, perhaps a twisted version as I chose biographies and memoirs as my preferred reading. I became “friends” with the people the books were written about.
I suppose I’m more of a modeled reader. I was encouraged by parents and teachers to read. RL Stine was my favorite writer in grade school, I went through those books so fast! I always looked forward to the scholastic book fair and I loved browsing in bookstores with my sister. It wasn’t until highschool that I became more of a social isolate reader/writer.
I definitely fell into the social isolate category as well. Thinking back, I was exposed to experiences and ideas beyond what we would traditionally “healthy” for children 7-10 years old. I found books (both fiction and non-fiction) that included these real world experiences as a source of “connection” that I simply didn’t have with my friends. Eventually things evened out, but I was already much more comfortable and intrigued by the ideas...and it continued from there. The aspect about feeling the need and desire to write also very much resonates. Great finds and thanks for opening this dialogue!
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My Mom taught English and History in high school and my Dad worked for a national newspaper. I grew up in a home where reading, learning and writing was valued above material things. We were not poor, but I can count on one hand the number of times we ate in a restaurant or hailed a taxi cab. Our lives were filled with love, delicious home-cooked food, an appreciation for the power of the pen, critical thinking and lively debates about world events.
During the summer holidays we ran a free library out of our home for the neighborhood kids - books, comic books, magazines etc. It was widely used by kids and teens.
One of my earliest memories is lying down on the cool tiled floor on holiday and Summer afternoons reading until I fell asleep to the gentle afternoon breeze. Would wake up refreshed, have my tea and afternoon snack and then head out to play soccer until dusk.
Nowadays, I read mostly online - phone, ipad and Mac. I do more book reading while I am on vacation..I can crank through a Vince Flynn or a Douglas Preston in 3-4 days while I am beachside.
What an absolutely beautiful childhood. Thanks for creating that image for me. The kitchen scene. The nap. The cool breeze and the cold tile. Soccer at dusk.
I, too, read a lot online. It's just easy. But also, more distracting. I much prefer reading physical books.
Again, thanks for sharing. The power of books to sustain is unlike anything else.
Same about physical books! I do read multiple at once. I'm a dabbler.
Thanks for a thought-provoking post, Matt. You know, I don't remember being read to as a child (sorry, Mom!), but I must have been, because my love affair with books began early and oh-so-intensely. I remember with overwhelming nostalgia the book fairs at school, the delivered-to-the-classroom books chosen via Scholastic Book Club magazines (yes, I'm that old), and all the books I treasured and read until they fell apart (Misty of Chincoteague, Charlotte's Web, The Phantom Tollbooth, A Wrinkle in Time, the Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle series, every Peanuts book ever printed, Old Yeller, the Curious George books, Babar the Elephant, Madeline, the Hardy Boys series [nope, not Nancy Drew], and oh god, my beloved Dr. Seuss, and so many more). My mother took me to the library frequently, a habit we continued during our summers in Vermont. We'd show up at the library in small-town Orleans in late June and the librarian would be overjoyed, because each week for the entire summer my brother and I would cart off stacks of books, and we'd read every one. I can't remember a time when reading wasn't my favorite pastime, and I passed on that love to my own sons by reading to them from the day they were born and throughout their childhoods. So what kind of reader am I? A passionate one.
Ah yes! The scholastic book fair. I remember these too. They transformed the school library. It was a lot of fun. Thanks for sharing :) That was a nice little flashback.
I think I, too, am a passionate reader. That should be it’s own category.
One of the few early childhood memories I have is of sitting on the floor of our local public library in Detroit, MI looking for "Madeline" where it was always kept on the bottom shelf. Every week I wanted to check that book out. I was very shy and I loved reading books. I can still recite it, word for word.
When I went to kindergarten down the street from our house, I obsessively checked "The King's Stilts" - one of Dr. Suess's lesser known books - out of the school library. When my parents decided to send me to a Catholic school for first grade, our neighbor, Mrs. Dixon, who taught at the elementary school down the block (I was afraid of her!) came over and gave me the copy of "The King's Stilts."
I don't remember my parents being avid readers when I was young. But, when I was grown and married I started to notice that every time I went to visit my parents, my mother had a stack of library books and she was always reading. Likely, she was just too busy raising four kids to be the avid reader she probably longed to be.
Many many years later, I was divorcing and moving out of state. My grown children didn't want the children's books and so I took them with me. But, I couldn't find the old copy of "The King's Stilts." A few years later, I received a package in the mail. It was from my ex-husband. He had found the tattered yellow-gold copy of the book in the attic, with the Emerson School Library stamped inside. :)
Thanks, Matt, for taking me down reading memory lane. I admit to reading and writing on the computer way more than I want to. I need to get back to snuggling with a real book. Winter is Coming :) and so it shall be.
Definitely going to check out that essay later; I love Professor Heath’s idea of hanging out in “reader” hot spots and interviewing people. What a fantastic way to really understand what people are reading and enjoying and have it directly from the source!
I feel like I am many kinds of a reader and each version of a reader comes through depending upon what I am reading. A big, serious and intimidating work requires a much different reader then going through a beloved much read story. Physical books will always be my number one, but I can’t deny the joy of audio books and my kindle either. Great writing today! 👏🏻
Thought provoking and I am thinking!
I do love the thought of a social isolate as a rebel, that really intrigues me. As for myself, I am probably a little bit of both types, maybe.
Mostly I just love words. My parents claimed I spoke in full sentences when I was 9 months old. (They also claimed I did so because I had to get them to pick me up so I wouldn't have to learn to walk.) Anyway, my mother read to me, and my father told me stories from his work in the fields and in the woods, where he might or might not have met little people, trolls (not the internet kind), fairies, and strange creatures from other planets.
At four, I had somehow learned how to read, at six I read Anne of Green Gables and other books like that, and at nine I read through the Bible from Genesis to Revelation. I also read a book on teenage psychology - I figured it would come in handy when I turned 13. When I did, I realized my parents had not read the book, and that I wasn't your typical teenager anyway.
All that to say: I love words, I can't not read and I can't not write. I was absolutely influenced by my parents, and I was a flashlight reader, as well as a rather different little girl who loved to walk into those other worlds and found it sad to have to leave them when the book ended. Whatever box that puts me in, these days I'm a very round old lady, and the box is probably square, so...
Okay, now THIS was fun to read!!! Wow!!!
Okay, first to answer your question. Yep - this resonates with me. I'm bookish. I even thought of starting a business "A Bookish Collective" when I imagined myself fleeing the nursing and healthcare scene. As I've processed that (through writing and counseling) I don't feel AS PANICKED about Healthcare (capital-H). But, I also DO feel CALLED.
Books have called to me since as far back as I can remember. My mom has been a reader for longer. My dad remembers the night he met my mom (his buddy's sister), reading a book on the couch, and how he left to break up with his girl friend so he could ask her out. (Thank you, by the way, for shining a light on something I've never noticed there!).
I'm looking forward to reading your other posts as time and energy allow. This was very intriguing and just the right length for my tired distracted brain!! Also, love the format. Reminds me of George Saunders' "A Swim In A Pond In The Rain". What a neat take on literature! Keep it up!
Take good care,
Jessie
Illinois
I'm neither. Neither of my parents reads, and I don't identify with the "social isolate" type. I honestly don't remember how it all started. My first memory is of already enjoying reading, so I kept doing it. I read books in Thai (my native language), then in English. I went from fiction to nonfiction, then back to fiction again. Reading was just an activity I enjoyed. I didn't have many activities nor friends as a child, so I just doubled down on reading as something to do that I liked.
I come from fine immigrant stock, where English was a second language. My father taught himself English before coming to Canada from Holland in 1956. (He'd also learned German during the war, but that's another story.) My mother had to learn English from her children, who were 7, 8, & 9 (the other two didn't count because they were 4 & 2, and I wasn't even born yet.) It took my mother a long time to learn to read English. She did manage to read one book during the course of her lifetime: GONE WITH THE WIND. But, my father, well, he'd always been an avid reader. And I suppose that's where we kids picked it up. He always had a book in his hands. I was the artsy-fartsy one in the family, thinking I'd be an artist. But then I started writing poetry when I was around 15. (I'd recently discovered Kipling.) I remember when I brought THE THREE MUSKETEERS home from the school library and my father said he wanted to read it. I said, "But I thought you already did?" His reply made so much sense. "I did, but that was a Dutch translation, now I want to read the English translation." I never forgot that.
I still read. I've been collecting books all my life it seems. My first big purchase was Encyclopedia Britannica, which was, unfortunately, a year or two before the first personal computer came out. But I have my own study now, with nine bookcases full of hardcovers, and only a single shelf of paperbacks. Nothing beats the feeling of holding a book in your hands and having the time to do nothing but read.
Matt, interesting question, and I was just thinking about kinds of writers, and how I'd classify myself. I didn’t seriously want to be a writer when I was young, but it happens that I've gotten into literature and writing in my mid 70's. Now, seven years later, I've done a lot of novel and verse writing, about four hours or more every day, and I've been making an informal study of writers along the way. So here's my view: I think that being a writer is a particular calling, which I didn’t have in the day. A person called to be a writer is born with a lyrical sense about experience, and this sense is wrapped in a love of, and an ear for, words.
I think the distinction Shirley Brice Heath makes assumes one has this sense and ability, and goes on from there. It seems to me that her distinction is rooted in the temperamental poles of extrovert and introvert, which are broad ways in which that calling plays out in individuals. (I'm an introvert.)
As a kid, I had a different calling: I was intensely interested in the (big) ideas by which people understand the world, but not the kind of understanding you can get in narrative. At fifteen, I was fascinated by philosophical ideas and aquatic biology. I didn’t want to be a philosopher, but I wanted to ferret out the big ideas, and it turned out that aquatic biology contained the essence of my lyrical view. In those days, I soon discovered the gum rubber face mask, snorkel and fins, which were just making their way into Michigan, and I became an avant-guard diver, exploring lakes and rivers, usually working by myself, an isolated individual. I lived to get under the surface of living waters; it was entering "another world", much like what, I learned, later in life, that reading a good story is for a person. (Reader and writer.)
The only literature I've studied in was German Literature which I took because, in those days, you had to pass a German language test to get into graduate school to pursue a doctorate in biology. It was German Literature that planted a seed of serous interest in reading and writing literature. (I liked some of Schiller's poetry and plays.)
My calling to start writing narrative began when, one day in 2015, my grandson said, "Granddad, why don’t you write a story about that?" I was boring him with some philosophical scientific account of something. The next day I started writing a narrative story ("A Tale of Two Times"). Of course, starting so late in life means that I have a meager wordsmith's toolbox, but I've discovered a word wise editor in my wife, an English major, who really brings out the magic in my rough-worded narrative.
To return to the lyrical sense that I'm sure a writer must have to have a genuine calling to writing, the analogous lyrical thing for me was modeled by my desire for the "magic" of the underwater world. Scientific study of aquatic organisms in their habitats was to me an excuse for visiting that realm. In the same way, writing has to be more than making a living, because you have to want to live within the magic realm in which your narrative grows.
I am definitely a social isolate reader. I was shy and my father was in the army, so we moved every 2 years or so. I had no friend until I was in high school and then I only had one. My parents weren't readers. None of my family read seriously at all, so I didn't discover serious books until high school. So I don't know how I ended up here, a reader. I read mainly escapist literature, which meant historical romances and science fiction, mainly. Sad stuff was too painful. But I devoured books. I couldn't start one without wanting to read it straight through.
My mother was a voracious reader, my father an occasional reader. My mother read novels of all types, my dad mainly short stories. He loved the writings of Jack London. I grew up in a household that valued literacy. My mom hated the comic books we read on the sly. I came to realize that reading was good for entertainment and knowledge. The TV was not a replacement for the written word. It never will be.
My grandmother gave me condensed classics as gifts, but she read things I wasn’t interested in. School helped. I liked most of what we had to read for school, especially Dickens, Lord of the Flies, and Shakespeare. I stared writing very young, too, in fifth grade, so reading kind of goes with that. But the first book I really bought on my own and really got into was Dragons of Autumn Twilight. That got me into all those other D&D novels and then fantasy and sf novels. I think I bought it because a kid in my class was reading it and I thought the cover was cool.
Great piece Matt! Thanks for sharing. I am definitely a social isolate. My parents didn’t read much, and felt I was never able to share my worlds of imagination with them, siblings or peers. Funny enough I too am now a writer, and feel connected to this medium much; I am currently writing a thriller and write my own substack where I share my perspectives on life. Thanks for the content! Cheers
I wrote a big, long response to your question explaining why I didn't feel like either a modeled-habit or social isolate reader. But in the process, I realized that I'm basically the latter. Except for one key thing: I didn't do much reading as a child.
Despite this, after a little writing and reflecting, a specific part of the "social isolate" description helped me realize I belong in this camp: I definitely lived in my imagination a lot. It took me becoming a teenager to start feeling a real kinship with writers (and songwriters), but that becomes more part of it as I get older.
I think I leaned away from the "social isolate" label at first because it sounded quite harsh and because I was, and still am, quite a social person. But I also feel like I'm different from other people, and always had mixed feelings about social experiences. And again, that "imagination" element. All in all, I think I fit the mold relatively well.
It also helped to think of the choice like I do the Enneagram: what has motivated my reading?
I don’t remember seeing my parents read, but our house was filled with books and we didn’t get a TV until I was 12, so what choice was there? I read everything on the shelves--way too much of my dad’s stuff, including Carlos Casteneda and Ram Dass and other hippie stuff--and then grabbed hold of historical fiction and spy novels and I was off to the races, been reading for a minimum of an hour daily (and usually much more) ever since. What mystifies me is that my brother, raised in the same environment, reads not at all. He brags to this day that he can go years without reading a book, despite being a college-educated professional.
I think I'm a hybrid of those. Maybe social isolate at first reading great adventure and sports stories in Field & Stream and Sports Illustrated magazines - and then Jack London, Barry Lopez, Thomas McGuane, Jim Harrison, et al. Later I noticed friends and family members were able to discuss great books/stories I hadn't read, so I felt left out! Hopped into the broader world of literature more fervently which was when I become hooked. My father was a biology teacher and mom ran a college bookstore, but ironically we had very few books of note in the house when I was growing up.
I must be a social isolate, perhaps a twisted version as I chose biographies and memoirs as my preferred reading. I became “friends” with the people the books were written about.
I suppose I’m more of a modeled reader. I was encouraged by parents and teachers to read. RL Stine was my favorite writer in grade school, I went through those books so fast! I always looked forward to the scholastic book fair and I loved browsing in bookstores with my sister. It wasn’t until highschool that I became more of a social isolate reader/writer.
I definitely fell into the social isolate category as well. Thinking back, I was exposed to experiences and ideas beyond what we would traditionally “healthy” for children 7-10 years old. I found books (both fiction and non-fiction) that included these real world experiences as a source of “connection” that I simply didn’t have with my friends. Eventually things evened out, but I was already much more comfortable and intrigued by the ideas...and it continued from there. The aspect about feeling the need and desire to write also very much resonates. Great finds and thanks for opening this dialogue!