"Fantasy is hardly an escape from reality. It's a way of understanding it." — Lloyd Alexander
![Digital collage: open book with magic swirls and rich textured backdrop. Quote text overlaid.]](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/c312ac_b20003aa8b594ff0ac9be2b9a72931c5~mv2.jpeg/v1/fill/w_980,h_980,al_c,q_85,usm_0.66_1.00_0.01,enc_auto/c312ac_b20003aa8b594ff0ac9be2b9a72931c5~mv2.jpeg)
As a child, I was a voracious reader. Still am. The world around me made little sense far too much of the time. I was surrounded by anger, fear, and confusion and forced into social structures that made no rational sense.
Books not only gave me a respite, but they enabled my young brain to wrap around the questions of life. Books made sense when the world outside of me did not.
It’s still that way. I read and write to understand the world, as Lloyd Alexander says, but also to inhabit a world I’m dreaming into existence.
I escape into stories because my heart and soul need a mirror to comprehend the otherwise incomprehensible.
Stories teach us so many things:
Mysteries teach us that, no matter what, problems can be solved.
Thrillers teach us that justice will out.
Romances teach us that love matters and will triumph in the end.
Urban Fantasy teaches us that there is magic in the world.
Epic Fantasy teaches us that we are part of the ongoing battle of creation versus destruction.
Historical fiction teaches us about the past, and how we may have gotten where we are.
Science Fiction teaches us that there not only is a future, but there are also worlds worth imagining…
Stories give us comfort, courage, hope, and joy. Stories teach us the ways of grief and anger, and making it through. Stories kindle inside of us the will to continue, and to face another day.
Stories help us make sense of a too often confusing world.
This is why I write.
This is why I read.
How about you?
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I was recently privileged to travel back to childhood homes, schools I attended, and parks I played in many decades ago. (I am up in my nineties now - so what a treat!) It was a sweet chance to tie up "lose ends" and bring closure.
Well, I write because very silly situations pop into my head and writing them down gets them out of there, and I read because I always have, since I was a small confused missfit child with no friends and an unhappy disfunctional family. I had one of those rich fantasy lives Tom Smith sings about. Fiction certainly got me through Junior High! And now it's getting me through my 70's...