If you want to be a writer

read, read, read

I know this is an obvious thing to say, but I’ve now taught creative writing for 30 years, and I still have to persuade some of my students to read books as if the two are not in a symbiotic relationship, as if you can become a writer without reading literature. I ask them if they think musicians need to listen to music in order to create it themselves, which is often the most persuasive argument.

I have loved reading since I was first able to do so independently, and while I didn’t realise it when younger, everything I read then shaped the writer I am today, even the books I did not like or rate highly, because I was developing my critical skills, my aesthetic sensibility and also my personal taste about the literature that spoke to me. It’s an ongoing project, but these days I am conscious of how my reading is feeding my writing.

What was I reading in that moment in 1983? Possible options: Toni Morrison, Buchi Emecheta, Alice Walker, Audre Lorde, Michelle Cliff, Maya Angelou or maybe an American women of colour anthology such as Home Girls: A Black Feminist Anthology, edited by Barbara Smith. Most of these books were only available to buy in London in Sisterwrite Bookshop on Upper Street.

Of course, reading is also a great pleasure which offers incredible rewards, regardless of whether you want to become a writer.

While not everything is clear or visible in this cropped photograph, around me are a cassette tape and walkman (remember them!), a notebook, a flask, and a lunch box.

I was in love with the person taking the photograph, who loved me back. We were equals. We would part a couple of years later but remain friends forever.

Next year - 2026 - is the National Year of Reading in the UK.

“The Education Secretary is calling on parents to lead by example and make reading a daily habit to help reverse the decline in reading for pleasure, to help give kids the best start in life as part of the Plan for Change.

The call comes as the Department for Education and National Literacy Trust join forces to launch a National Year of Reading, starting in January 2026 to kick start a reading revolution. It will reverse the trend as just one in three aged 8 to 18 said they enjoyed reading in their free time in 2025.”