We often hear about how we are shaped by the people around us.

But I know that I have also been molded by the media which I consumed as a child and the media which I consume now.

As both an avid reader and a writer of a wide array fiction, I can look back on my earliest experiences with the stories that played a part in making me who I am today, and I can see the patterns which emerge. I marvel at what they say about me, about my tastes, and about my attentions.

TIM CAN

My first foray into the realm of reading independently comes in the form of a relative abomination of nature named

 I suppose I've always appreciated puns, because even at four, I find an anthropomorphic tin can named Tim more amusing than disturbing. 

Mom and I discover the book in a collection of thin, large-print introductory readers at my grandmother's house. We borrow it, and when I read it all by myself, Mom doesn't give it back. 

We've kidnapped Tim Can.

    By the time I reach full literacy - when I graduate from nibbling on books like Tim Can to inhaling more books outside of school than inside - I read ravenously. And the more I read, the better I get at it. Literacy and grade level restrictions are no longer a concern; I am restrained only by the length of my own attention span. 

    I read during recess and am scolded for being inactive, so I take my book to the swings and kick my feet while I read. 

    I read during class and am scolded for being inattentive. I read anyway. I learn to multitask.

During that time, I discover Jack Stalwart, an elementary school secret agent in a world where child labor laws don't exist and no one concerns themselves with ethical quandaries of child soldiers.

Elizabeth Singer Hunt chocks her books full of facts that rattle around my third-grade brain. I realize for the first time, that when I read, I don't just want to escape into another world or another life, I want to learn about my own.

The first person I ever intentionally sit down and read to of my own will is my dog, Claire. I'm in the fifth grade, and my class is reading The Borrowers, bit by bit. At least, we're supposed to be reading it bit by bit. When I take Claire out beneath the trees to read to her, she seems to enjoy it, so I just keep reading....

The more I read, the more I learn about writing. I start to think about things like hidden meanings, foreshadowing, and world building. I'm especially fascinated by world building - science fiction and fantasy and every tale in between. 

But no part of reading (fiction or otherwise) ever absorbs my thoughts the way the characters do, and I become @#$%&! obsessed with superheroes.

By the time I reach middle school, I am wholly infatuated with the idea of writing my own fiction stories. 

I become an author in that I share my stories with my peers. We pass the pages around among ourselves during classes and over our lunch breaks. 

Looking back, I'm astounded by the sheer volume of literary works my middle school imagination was able to produce in such a short amount of time. Hundreds upon hundreds of pages.

What I've loved to read bleeds into what I choose to write, and I fill pages upon pages full of superheroes and science fiction and fantasy and even a little horror.             

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But then, stories were how I connected to other people, so of course there would be a lot of them.

I was a shy, anxious kid. Very introverted. People were difficult. Stories were easy, fun.

And people like stories. They liked my stories, and I liked that feeling - being able to surprise them, draw them in, and make them feel for a character the way I felt for a character.

Reading had always made me feel different - like I was a different person, in a different place, in a different world. I liked that.

Writing made me feel like I was a part of something. I liked that too.