A reader is not a blank page
Joanne from Broxtowe Women’s Project shares her thoughts on taking part in I Am A Reader.
Is reading itself a creative process? Or is the reader purely the recipient of an author’s creativity?
For the group of women supported by Broxtowe Women’s Project taking part in the ‘I am a reader’ workshops the answer was a resounding ‘Yes!’ to the first question, and ‘No’ to the second.
As we talked to Leicester author, Mahsuda Snaith about what we choose to read and why, it became clear that each of us found reading (especially the reading of fiction) relaxing.
A chance to immerse ourselves in other places, other lives, stories other than our own. While doing so, our imaginations had a chance to create places, to form faces, to hear voices.
In reading, creating.
As we talked, it became clear we were all imagining different people and places to the characters and locations described to us in black and white on the pages in front of us.
Whether an author decided to carefully describe the physical appearance of a character with carefully chosen adjectives and nouns, or leave a cliff-top setting subtle and vague, everyone in the group created a person and scene of their own. One drawn from their own experiences, their own travels – their own cliff-top visits.
Most of us found it nigh-on impossible to articulate who it was we saw, how they sounded, where they stood, but we all appreciated the differences we had created made the reading of the story unique to us.
A reader is not a blank page. We all bring our personality and life experiences to bear on every word we take in, making our own theories on a plotline, our own guesses about a character’s motivation. Which is why the Broxtowe Women’s Project group agreed that reading is far from a passive pursuit, it’s a wholly creative one.
If you would like to find out more about the work of Broxtowe Women’s Project, and how we support women and families affected by Domestic Abuse, please visit our website, www.broxtowewomensproject.org.uk