Anne Shannon Monroe: I do not read many current authors—haven't the time. I know many are good and I miss a great deal, but out on our coast we just have twenty-four hours a day, the same as in New York, and some of them must be spent in the open, when the open is such an enchanting wonderland. I read the classics in school-days—had bookish parents who drove them down our throats—but not since.
L. M. Montgomery: I think I owe considerable to my greedy reading and rereading of standard fiction—the old masters—Scott, Dickens, Thackeray, Hawthorne. Occasionally, too, a well-written modern magazine story has been helpful and illuminating. But, as a rule, I think aspiring authors will not reap much benefit from current fiction—except perhaps from a purely commercial point of view in finding out what kind of stories certain magazines take! Most writers, except those of absolute genius, are prone to unconscious imitation of what they read and that is a bad thing.
Frederick Moore: I can not gauge what the classics have done for me. There is some "bunk" about classics. But I believe that behind every writer there is the inherited tendency to write. This trait seems to well up, even if several generations have been skipped in the art. The creative urge does not always show itself in the same metier—for instance, it will crop out as music in one generation, as painting or sculpture in another, or as invention.
Talbot Mundy: God knows. I haven't read much. Kipling has given me more pleasure than any other writer. Have only just begun to read. Had no particular education, beyond the usual grounding in Latin, Greek and "English"—all worked into me with a stick and with all the useful parts left out.
Kathleen Norris: The best modern authors, and all the classics one can assimilate, seem to me indispensable. But unless one can read them in their own languages it is obvious that the only gain would be in plot, construction and character work. But every one, from Milton to Galsworthy, for style.
Anne O'Hagan: I can't answer this, but I should say that I had learned most of my craft from reading the English classics.
Grant Overton: In the beginning I really learned everything from reading. I do not think one learns his writer's craft directly from reading either current authors or the classics. I think he gets from good reading a mental elevation and impetus. The rest must come out of himself.
Sir Gilbert Parker: Nothing. I have always gone my own way, good or bad.
Hugh Pendexter: I am not conscious of being helped by current fiction, which I read for entertainment purely. I studied and taught Latin and Greek but could never discover my work in those subjects has helped me any in my work of writing.
Clay Perry: I am afraid it is impossible to answer such a question. Undoubtedly the reading of the classics when I was a boy has had a more lasting influence upon me than the reading of current authors in the past few years. If by "classics" is meant recognized craftsmanship by modern authors, I should say that I had learned a great deal from such writers as Jack London, Edith Wharton, Hall Caine and a score of modern writers whose style and craftsmanship is good. (One or both.)