I grew up on Marvel Comics, Star Trek reruns and Star Wars. Then I discovered Bradbury's Martian Chronicles, Clarke's 2001, and Asimov's Foundation trilogy, and my love of "speculative fiction" took off from there. My reading lists include more general fiction these days (Cormac McCarthy and Richard Russo, for example), but my writing is still SF and fantasy. Sometimes horror too, though not as much as I used to. Even my attempts at contemporary fiction will include some fantastical element.