I had a long entry, but I clicked on an entry in the middle of it, and lost everything. Lesson learned.
    "Few people are consistently good writers, Riginslinger. Many, many people are capable of good writing."

                     
          "I read mostly works of fiction."


             I disagree. I think there are people who are consistently good writers.

             The only writer I've tried to read on katlaughing's list is Tony Hillerman, and I didn't find it very compelling. On Little Hawks list I agree with Mark Twain, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and C.S. Forester. I suspect there's an element of gender bias in this.

             I can read anything by Robert B. Parker and be thoroughly entertained. I don't know why. I've tried to immitate him, on occasian, with limited success.

             Anyone who reads Ernest Hemingway's "The Old Man and the Sea," and can say that's not great writing is brain dead.