This is one of the best--maybe the best--I've read about "writer's block" on Medium. Your observation about how peculiarly America the idea is would, in itself, have earned the 50 claps I gave it.

But--and given that you're a teacher, you knew this was coming, didn't you?--I disagree with some of your conclusions, including that "you can't write what you don't know." If Stephen Crane believed that, we wouldn't have "The Red Badge of Courage." Nor would we have many other literary masterpieces in which authors made imaginative leaps into worlds they didn't "know."

Your essay also applies more to fiction or creative nonfiction than to journalism. A lot of us who've worked for magazines or newspapers had journalism professors who told us "Plumbers don't get plumber's block." That principle--far more than reading a lot--has helped us survive in the field.