Reading
Magee, Nichetra

NICHETRA: Probably my biggest influence in my writing and my ability to read was my grandmother; she grew up in the 1930s and she was a share-cropper's daughter so she didn't get a whole lot of education because they had to work the fields. So she pretty much self-taught herself how to read and write and do those sort of things. I remember when I was smaller she was just an avid reader and still is to this day. She used to read the mystery magazines with all the stories and everything. I remember I used to, "Can I have one?" And I used to read it with her while she was reading another one. So those mystery and romance magazines were so fun for me to read because I was like an eight year old reading those magazines like, "oh, murder mystery and romance," and all that kind of stuff to see the things that I would read. I know when I was younger my mom and my grandma used to tell me how when I would first start to talk that I would mimic what they would say. So if they would get on my brother and sister I would get on my brother and sister the same way that they would. My grandmother and my mom have both been really big influences in my writing and always really supported me with things. I remember when my mom went back to college probably when I was in the eighth grade, and I remember she brought home some Richard Wright books, "Black Boy" and "Native Son" and all those and I remember reading those books at that age. It was just such a new, vivid world that opened up to me where I was exposed to African American writers and actually saw that that was a career that I might one day be involved in. So that's my literary story.