Autumn Konopka
BE A GOOD READER

To be a good writer, you must first be a good reader.  This advice is so ubiquitous, it’s almost trite. 

But what exactly does it mean to be a good reader?

Over the years, I’ve given this question an inordinate amount of thought. Maybe it’s BookTok and Bookstagram. Maybe it’s the ten-plus years I spent teaching critical reading to first-year college students. Or perhaps this is the mind-plague of all English majors, especially those of us who came of age in the 90s, when the worst thing you could possibly be was a “poser.”

I’m pretty sure I was obsessing over this question almost as soon as I could hold a book. Even as a small child, I read early and often and was quickly labelled a “good reader.” It became a core part of my wee identity, but by the third or fourth grade, I no longer felt like one. My mind would wander, and I’d find myself reading and re-reading the same paragraph several times. Clearly, I was a “slow reader”—which meant I was no longer a good reader. (If you don’t think a fourth grader can have an existential crisis, I assure you, you’re wrong.) Good readers, as I’d begun to learn, read very quickly: they finished in-class, silent reading ahead of everyone else and devoured novels in a matter of hours. As I continued through school, the standards seemed to only get higher: a good reader rejected television, always had a book in hand, and possessed an encyclopedic knowledge of literature—proven by frequent and ostentatious references to titles, authors, characters, literary periods, styles, and forms, etc. I eventually finished graduate school with an MFA in poetry, but I was convinced I’d never really be a good reader. 

Yet, I loved to read—in spite of those perpetual feelings of academic inadequacy. In fact, it was liberating to be a lost cause. If I had no hope of proving myself through my reading history, why bother to try? Finally, I could tune out all the shoulds that were monitoring my TBR and commenting on my reading habits, whispering their disapproval like an unsympathetic panel of judges. 

You should have finished that book by now. It’s neither long nor complex. 

Well… I haven’t, and honestly, I’m not sure I want to. It’s meh, at best. 

You can’t not finish a book!

Oh, but I can. Actually, it’s decided. I don’t even like this author. I’ll go watch Gossip Girl instead.

Nooooo!!!!

Yes. Goodbye.

Finally. I could read what I liked, acknowledge what I hated, admit when I was bored or confused, and walk away if I didn’t care. I could listen to audiobooks and read graphic novels without worrying  that they “didn’t count.” I could admit to having reader’s block. (Which is a real thing). And I could return to my comfort novels as often as I wanted without that voice in the back of my brain ticking off all the Important Books I still hadn’t read. 

I will probably never be well-read enough to satisfy the standards I was given in my youth. I’ll never be a speed reader or have a photographic memory of every page I turn. But when I stopped fretting over what reading meant about me, I really felt what it meant to me. It isn’t what you read, or how quickly, or even how well you remember it, that matters. It’s about opening ourselves to the possibilities that emerge when we engage with new ideas and explore alternate ways of moving through the world. 

Or maybe it’s not about that at all. Maybe that’s just my version of being a good reader. Maybe yours is something entirely different. 

Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “I cannot remember the books I’ve read any more than the meals I have eaten; even so, they have made me.” 

If he’s right, then reading is sustenance. It’s just that simple, and this argument is moot. You don’t need advice to read any more than you need advice to eat. Just do it. Recognize your needs, and fill them. Relish in your favorites, try new things every once in a while, and avoid anything that doesn’t pass the sniff test.

Read what sustains you. 

Autumn Konopka is the Senior Editor for Book Reviews and Author Interviews at Cleaver Magazine. She is a former poet laureate of Montgomery County, PA (2016) and author of the award-winning novel Pheidippides Didn’t Die (2023) and the poetry chapbook, a chain of paperdolls (2014). A runner, mental health advocate, and trauma-informed teaching artist, Autumn lives outside of Philadelphia and finds joy in coffee, rainbows, reggaetón, and (of course) books.

Read more from Cleaver’s Writing Tips.