A person who's gone to the moon, say, is creat-ive when they write a book about what it was like. In that they are creating a new book, with new content, that could not be written by any one else.

This places a certain sort of discovery at the heart of creativity; and I think that's what I find critical.

Yes, a person is typically more "creative in their thinking", the more broadly read they are. But that "creativity" is just a repetition unless they make some discovery.

Eg., a such as the impressionist painters, that visual perception is impressionistic -- that lead to a revolution in painting.

Yes those artists were "well read" in that they'd probably seen a lot of art. And yes they could appear creative by being able to use that experience to paint. But real creativity came from discovery.

And that's what animals are: fundamentally embedded into a world where each experience is a discovery; each moment of time is novel -- and we are all creativity adapting to it. For some, that discovery revolutionises an area and we call them "creative geniuses" -- but we're all doing the same thing.

They're just skilled enough to capitalise on it

Obviously the answer is that its a non-question. The amount an author reads doesn’t correlate to success. Plenty of authors are voracious readers, others rarely pick up a book.

What do you see with a lot of creative authors (but not all) is a dedication to the craft. Putting in hours of writing. Often editing or just tossing everything.

I have noticed though. People on my team best capable of writing technical documentation. Read a lot of technical documentation. This is the exact domain GPT can Excel at, and one where generic language is accepted.

All I can say is that learning more will change your creativity in some way. And often, I think that's a good thing.