Recently I ran my first short fiction workshop. Over the months leading up to the event most of my spare mental time—in the shower, walking to the train station, operating a spotlight at my job—was spent remembering and rewording advice I’d received from other writers in similar workshops. And, of course, some of that time was spent trying to quash, or allowing myself to wallow in, imposter syndrome.

So often a writer’s self-doubt—or self-flagellation—is not only linked to the quality of her own work, but to the quality of what she has or hasn’t read (as so many writers have reflected on in this blog series). We all have our lists, ones we’re proud of and ones of which we’re ashamed. My lists often look like two sides of one coin, with writers whose work I love alongside very similar writers whose work I’ve never read. For instance, my absolute favourite writer is American short story legend Lorrie Moore, and yet somehow I made it through two Creative Writing degrees, years of devouring short fiction, and ten of my own fiction publications, without ever having read an Alice Munro story.