The Art of Reading Widely Within and Beyond Academia

Abstract

ire’ne lara silva wrote “everything must be a little wild.” Reading should also be done with the entirety/wideness of being. In this article—which seeks to showcase/highlight the promise and responsibilities inherent in reading and writing—I chronicle what it can mean to read widely and wildly for academic purposes and beyond. I argue that scholarship is and can be an inherently creative endeavor, one that asks us to question and seek from a wide variety of sources, external and internal—for example, academic journals and publications, poetry, creative nonfiction, personal writing, etc. In this view of my reading practices, how they engender writing, I hope to demonstrate the possibilities inherent in reading widely with intention and care to (re)present one’s work, all that entails. It requires letting go just a bit, letting the reading and writing process unfurl in less mediated, though still purposeful ways. This work follows those assumptions. It follows that track, meandering between personal experience and the potential of writing with both clarity and creativity, because it must be, in a sense, a little wild.