I never liked reading. Or books. Or words. Or books that held anything but pictures.

I walked into the building in the dead of winter dreading the warmth and the overbearing odors that came with the people of the town, the venders that stood behind their tables stacked high with Christmassy trinkets and clothing and other items of subtle worth, and the friendly unfamiliar faces that danced around each. It was my first time attending the Washington, New Hampshire Christmas Fair.

Elderly folk wandered with open minds and warm smiles, dining away from the booths and speaking to the young that toddled about. I swayed this way and that, keeping close to my parents as we circumnavigated the congested pathways through the large room of the lodge. I kept my distance from the booth that held nothing of worth, nothing of pleasure.

My mind instantly wandered to the toys that decorated some of the tables and the food that glistened with candy-coated sugar. The last booth I wanted to venture to stood directly beside the exit, eyeing me from across the room, brimming with books. It arched comfortably out of my reach, to my relief. I detested reading as much as a child does vegetables, though I granted novels of pure illustration my full attention. Words lead to deep, deep, unfathomable places that I never cared to go, worlds unseen and realms unheard of. But I cared little more for these individually bound entranceways than I did my daily chores.

It was just when we were on our way out, a plate full of cookies in hand, that I was stopped by the trill of my mother's voice, beckoning me around. Of course, I turned, reluctant to face the consequence had I not, and I followed my mother's words back to the table—the table I dreaded and feared.

Books ran up and down, some standing on their sides, some flat on their backs, stacked up and away. I reared back my head and took in the books, the books, the books, all of the books, titles grasping at me as if they had hands, fingers splayed in desperation. I clasped my wrist behind my back, nervously glancing about, eyeing the faces of the joyful librarians that sat behind the table of towering novels.

They asked me questions, and the answers spilled from my parted lips. I did not hear what I said and I did not care what I said because I did not care about anything other than the books. The books that were watching me, staring at me, drinking me in. The books that, for the first time, seemed to be calling out to me.

I snatched up one title and held it in my hands, flipping it open and cringing at the age-old scent of dust and the interiors of dark boxes and the cellars that they dwelled within. I placed it down and my mother suggested another while my father continued to peruse the tables once more.

Unenthused, I accepted the book from her and stared at its title: Cornelia Funke’s Inkheart, beneath which was what looked like a hand reaching through a window, and as if I reached back, wistful in my endeavor, the book seemed to have a hold on me. In my hands, light and dipped in ink, scrawled in words that made a mark on my heart, as indelible as a tattoo, sat the one thing that changed my future.

One of the first storms of winter knocked out the entire town’s power for days on end, and I recall sitting there at the heart of the frozen world, shadows all around me as my family lounged around in utter silence, our fears calmed by the fact that we were all together in one place.

The only sounds that filled the room was that of our own breathing.

The book—that book—Inkheart sat on the edge of the table, and I don’t remember reaching for it. I don’t remember opening the book or even starting it. But I remember reading—and I don’t remember stopping. It was that book that got me into reading. Inkheart. I’ve read it about seven times now, memorized the characters by heart, and now, a decade later, it still remains my favorite work of fiction.

From then on, more than anything else on this earth, I loved reading. And from my passion for reading was born my love for writing, and every single day that followed has been spent engrossed in wondrous words that fill every writer's life.

I never liked reading. Or books. Or words. Or books that held anything but pictures.

Now I cannot imagine a life without any of it.