A Love Affair With Words

I was about ten when I stumbled into reading. My parents were lovers and students of literature, and I grew up surrounded by a giant wall of leatherbound classics, some of which I have inherited from my mother and live on the large oak shelf in my office. Both of my parents favored classics and philosophy, with my mother's love of Oscar Wilde and Emerson and my father's love of Edgar Rice Burroughs and Plato. My father read me the works of Homer and Plato when I was cradled in his arms, the beginning of a long history of reading to me by the fire. When I was five or six, Dad read Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone aloud, making the voices sound like a squeaky Hermione and the wizened Dumbledore. I was entranced, and after he closed the books I ran to his easy chair and plucked the book out of his hand, racing to my room where I read it over and over and over again. And thus began a love affair with words.

My mother indulged my newfound love of books, overjoyed that I shared her love of the written word. She indulged my hunger for books and presented me with armfuls of books every holiday that she could. I remember running my greedy fingers over suspiciously shaped presents at Christmas and birthdays, seeking the telltale signs of pages and spines. More and more books filled my shelf, and by eight or nine I had an impressive collection, due to my mother.

Mom was particularly enamoured of long series; she was a lifetime fan of Terry Goodkind and Robert Jordan, and when Jordan passed away she mourned the loss of the final book of the Wheel of Time series. When I expressed interest in reading Harry Potter, she began acquiring every copy of Enid Blyton and Carolyn Keene as she could. I read every Nancy Drew book in the matter of a month, reading and rereading to my heart's content. I would often finish a book and flip back to the beginning and start again. To this day, I reread my comfort books and can rattle off full passages before they appear on the page.

Enid Blyton meant a lot to me. I read the Famous Five books a thousand times, and fell in love with Five on and Island, and that section of the book is still permanently creased and the pages fanned as a result of a child so in love with a story that books went into the shower and bath and often fell into the water. My favorite Blyton book is by far The Secret Mountain, the story of a quartet of children lost in Africa and searching for their parents, captive in a mountain of seemingly no entry. I was entranced by the cave hideaway and imagined myself on a bed of moss and stone, instead of my warm pile of sheets and abundance of pillows.

I clearly remember Christmas of 2010, the day I unwrapped Wild Magic by Tamora Pierce. This was the turning point for me, the mouth of the rabbit hole that led to Wonderland. I travelled to Tortall and Emelan daily after that, hunting down elusive copies of the out of print Circle of Magic series, using all of my Audible credits on Tammy books, and spending hours on the Wiki page and on fan fiction forums, which really helped spur my love of writing. My writing style is based off of Pierce's lighthearted, witty, and engaging style; her unique verbiage is my inspiration. Her books are soul food, the kind that warms you and even fifteen years later makes me laugh aloud and have to stop reading to catch my breath. She can heal a wounded heart, can soften a furrowed brow, can soothe tears and make you feel all is well in the world. I advise everyone to take a trip to Tortall and Emelan, to teach you lessons of love, and war, and equality, and friendship, and strength. Ride with Alanna the Lioness to war. Fly on dragonback with Veralidaine Sarrasri the Wildmage. Hunt child killers and end slavery with Rebakah Cooper, the Provost's Dog. Wage war on bullies with Keladry of Mindelan, The Protector of the Small. Survive earthquakes, epidemics, fires, pirate attacks, and the strength and struggles of friendship with Briar, Tris, Daja, and Sandry.

I can safely say that Tamora Pierce shaped the course of my life, my interests, and my inner strengths and I owe her everything.