I've been writing since I was a boy in Flatbrookville, New Jersey, a town of, perhaps, 400 people that no longer exists. I've read all my life, a lot of science fiction, but not exclusively. I loved (still love) Arthur C. Clarke and Ray Bradburry. Orson Scott Card. I became very annoyed by Heinlein.
I devoured Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide books.
Reading Samuel Delany's Dhalgren taught me that you can write surrealism.
Not entirely a geek, I also read Shakespear, Christopher Fry, Arthur Miller and Tennessee Williams, a more...