What I try to do is read stuff that won't deal with the dangerous dark things I hope I am writing about.
I'm an amateur, so I read what's interesting to me.
I always had good students.
I always want to read Gore Vidal's nonfiction. Because everything he writes is an essay and it's worth reading.
I read a lot of poetry. I read some history.
If a writer is honest, if what is at stake for him can seem to matter to his readers, then his work may be read. But a writer will work anyway, as I do, and as I have, in part to explore this terra incognita, this dangerous ground I seem to need to risk.