Jennifer Pierce's Reading Interests

The earliest influence on my writing was the book Silver Pennies: A Collection of Modern Poems for Boys and Girls by Blanche Jennings Thompson. This work was first published in 1929. My edition was from the mid 1950’s, when I first learned to read. I received it for my birthday, and it was the first book I can identify as being singularly mine.

I still have it, some fifty-five years later.

I was the  youngest in a family of five. All my other books were hand-me-downs shared with Karen, my sister closest in age. Our house was rich in books. Karen’s and my shared bedroom had two long shelves that ran nearly the entire length of the west wall. It was there we kept our collection. When we were barely old enough to read we got the notion to create a lending library and convinced our best friends to do the same. We labeled the spine of all the children’s books in each house and pasted inside the back cover a crude pocket cut from oak tag. My copy of "Silver Pennies" still bears this evidence of my earliest passion for books.

I gather, from ancient type written copies of childhood verse saved by my mother, that soon after being given "Silver Pennies," I became a poet. I have written poetry ever since.

Silver Pennies on Goodreads.com

When I was old enough to explore the entire wall of books in our back living room, I discovered my father's copies of Elbert Hubbard's Scrap Book  and  The Note Book of Elbert Hubbard: Mottoes, Epigrams, Short Essays, Passages, Orphic Sayings and Preachments, published in 1927. Hubbard was an artist, writer, and one of the founding members of the Roycroft Guild, and active in the Arts and Crafts movement. I loved not only the words in these books, but the ornate illuminated letters and borders. I became interested in calligraphy, and still have a penchant for collecting interesting expressions. Hubbard's "Scrap Book" was a collection of his favorite words of wisdom, and the "Notebook" contained his own writings. It was here I first encountered essay.

The "Scrap Book" inspired my sister Karen and I to start what we called our Motto Club, which was dedicated to furthering the collection of sayings we encountered in Hubbard's work. Our club motto was one taken from Elbert Hubbard himself. Never explain, your firends don't need it, and your enemies will never believe you anyhow.

I've found great amusement from my early attachment to these words, because, more than any other passion, I have a driving need to understand, then explain. This is the very heart of my writing practice.