Being a committed writer has many frustrations, but among the biggest is dealing with people who believe, often belligerently, that they can be rich and famous authors without bothering to read a book. Crime writer Patrick Shawn Bagley, also a denizen of backwater Maine, cogently sums up this aggravation on a recent blog post; and I'm sure most serious reader-writers have endured similar demands from numerous would-be Lil' Nonreading Stephen Kings.

But really, the problem isn't only endemic to writing. My mother used to teach a required "Intro to Western Lit" course at a small state college in Rhode Island with a large number of elementary-education majors. Over and over again she dealt with mediocre or failing students who complained about having to read the course material, which was more or less equivalent to the  basic college-track English curriculum in a high school. And the most common complaint she heard was along the lines of "But Mrs. Potter, I only want to teach kindergarten!"

Fabulous. A kindergarten teacher who doesn't know anything more than a kindergartner. We need more of that in this world. Along with more writers who don't read.