END PIECE Are You in Love?

THREE OUT OF FIVE members of my adult writers group are not in love. I discovered this horror while at a recent meeting with these writers I have known for almost three years.

The love I am talking about? The love or reading.

Almost a year ago, I earned acceptance as an active member of the Science Fiction Writers of America. This mean, among other things, I receive free copies of books voted as Nebula Award finalists. One such novel this year was Orbital Resonance by John Barnes.

At this particular month's gathering, Beatrice (not her real name) brought in samples of the Hudson and Kenyon Reviews. My own show-and-tell publications included the copy of Orbital Resonance, and three copies of the Prairie Schooner.

The literary magazines went over big, gaining the approval of kneading palms and twitching fingers that couldn't seem to resist caressing the sweet autumn-stained pages.

When I presented the Nebula Award finalist, the first comment from Olivia (also fictitious) was, "I'm not interested in science fiction."

The handsome book lay on the coffee table between us like some illegitimate child of a disturbed genre, trembling in its dust jacket as if it suffered some incurable handicap. Only one other writer that night dared to touch the glossy jacket, to open the cover, a writer, who, like myself, reads science fiction, fantasy, main stream, poetry, plays, stories in all genres and all styles.

I was appalled by this reaction. How could a group of writers not be interested in a Nebula Award finalist?

Not interested enough to peruse the jacket blurb, the information about the author, or the name of the publisher? Not interested enough to simply take a gander at the interior type style, the book's design, or dare I suggest, to read the first sentence, the first paragraph to see what this book is about?

I came to a frightening conclusion; these writers are not in love. The words shouted at me. No love. That's all I could think for the next half hour while trying to pay attention to the writer who was reading his newest manuscript, which was, ironically, a science fiction story. No love.

On the drive home after the meeting I remembered the words of a letter from Ray Bradbury. I'd written to him asking for advice. He asked me in return, "Are you well read? If not, you'll never learn."

Bradbury then suggested exactly what I should be reading. "You must stuff yourself with stories by others," he wrote. "Every night you must read at least two short stories before going to bed. Read all of Somerset Maugham, De Maupassant, Kipling, John Collier, John Steinbeck, Faulkner, and read collections of fantasy and weird fiction."

He was writing specifically about my inquires, at the time, into short story writing. But I got the message. Now I try to read everything I can. Granted, with limited hours in a day working full time and being a slow reader, I can't read great volumes of materials, but what I do read is a variety of styles in a plethora of genres, all with the single intent of helping me to learn.

And when I'm not snug under the covers having affairs with novels and short stories, plays and poems. I spend time in the bookstore or the public library reading jacket flaps to see what kind of fiction is being published today. I'll read the first sentence of a book to see if it captures me. Then I'll read the first three pages to see if the writer can inspire me with her style, her subject, or her characters. I do not regard whether the book is romance, mainstream, mystery, science fiction, fantasy, what have you.

Then I'll step over to the short story collections and peek in them. I'll open the books of stage plays and see the characters jump to life like pictures in a child's pop-up book. Around the next corner are the poetry books that, once freed from their shelves, sing like birds in spring. Down another aisle I'll pluck and cradle the picture books and young adult novels that tremble with their own life in my hands.

All this literary wonder occurs because I am in love. And I did not even know I was in love until the shambles of the non-lovers in my writer's group told me so.

"Yes," said the wise one starving for knowledge, "give me books, books, and more books! I'll give any book a chance!"

And through books . . . learning and eventual understanding.

Now it's my turn to ask: Are you well read? If not, start now. Read and learn. Cram your head full. Don't be a writer who dwells on Earth without love. It's a lonely, frustrating world for the writer. Find exhilaration in all written works as part of your ongoing education, and watch magic happen in your own writing. ♦