With the recent passing of Beverly Cleary (at 104), I've been thinking about all the writers that I read as a child and as a teen-ager and how I am very much a product of those writers.
As Tennyson's "Ulysses" says in his poem (which I had to memorize for high school English)--"I am a part of all that I have met; yet all experience is an arch wherethro' gleams that untravell'd world, whose margin fades for ever and for ever when I move."
And I am a part of all those writers that I have met, metaphorically. I am they as you are they as you are me and we are all together.
For me, Beverly Cleary is one of the greatest writers who ever lived. Her many stories (of Henry and Ralph and Beezus and Ramona and others) are a touchstone for how I saw the world as a child and how I see it now. Her RIBSY was one of the best novels I can remember reading--told from the perspective of Henry Huggin's canine pal, the novel expanded my imagination.
There are many other writers I can think of that influenced my character and the direction of my life (and maybe I'll talk about them in future posts), but I'd like to know which writers made you you?