AAR

[Eliza]

If you could spend an afternoon or evening talking with a favorite author, or one you think you would find interesting, who would that be? For fun, let's have three choices.

1. A current romance author:
2. A classics author from the past (like the literary ones taught in school*):
3. Any author, from any time, any discipline:

It's up to you whether you want to include reasons or not.

*N.B. Edited to clarify which kind of classics I meant, like Homer, for instance.

[Leigh]

You know I kind of like them at a distance. The only thing I really want to know is when her/his next book will be released and that can be answered in few minutes.
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Gone to Rainbow Bridge - Lily 2000-2011

[kim76]

I like Leigh's response (and for the most part it's true for me, too!). However, I would say:

1) Eloisa James
2) Willo Davis Roberts (one of my favorite Sunfire Romance authors)
3) Dorothy Parker

[Eliza]

OOPS! I goofed. I meant to put this in the Potpourri Forum. Sorry.

[Lynda X]

1. Carla Kelly.
2. Oscar Wilde
3. Shakespeare

[DonnaBenny]

1. Susan Elizabeth Phillips - I think she would be so fun to hang with!
2. Jane Austen
3. Diana Gabaldon

[kim76]

Misread the second category! I'll go with Elizabeth Stoddard instead. She wrote an amazing and often overlooked novel called The Morgesons in the 1860s.

[Eggletina]

[Eliza]

[JaneO]

I'm not at all sure I would want to meet any of my favorite authors. Suppose I disliked them. That might spoil my pleasure in their books.

On the other hand, suppose they disliked me! They might think, "Oh, I don't want to write books that appeal to someone like her!" and then change the way they write. Now that would be a real disaster for me.

[xina]

I don't know if I'd want to hang out with them. Meet them maybe, but I would rather hear them speak. So many contemporary authors, that I don't know where to start. However, I would love to meet Ernest Hemingway, Jane Austen and DH Lawrence. Now, that would be interesting.
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[Eliza]

Even though I posted the question, I finally came up with my own answers.

1) Eloisa James. Besides loving her multi-level, outstanding writing and great wit, her incredible not-the-common-path-chosen life fascinates me. Could I meet her in Italy, please, while I'm at it? (It was really hard not to choose Candace Hern or Loretta Chase too because of their interest and research in the historical areas they write about. I really enjoy their research as well as their wonderful writing.)

2) Thomas Hardy. I love how nature is a character along with people in the universe of his novels, and that the novels were mainly rural-based. Plus he's my flat-out favorite. (Charles Dickens, another favorite, would be second because his stories are universal too, even though the scenery and props have changed. Besides having had an interesting, complex, and complicated life (like his sentence structures and novels), I've also read he was an engaging speaker.)

3) Joseph Campbell. He combined lit, folklore, and universal motifs--all the things I love in any reading I do--besides his being an terrific, animated, engaging teller of stories.

It's obvious that history is right up there with reading for my main interests, so I wish I had added a time-travel category to this post so I could go back in time and not only see a Shakespearean comedy in person, but so that we could conclusively know Shakespeare really is Shakespeare

[maryskl]

1. Loretta Chase (maybe). I figure someone who is that funny when writing is probably funny IRL as well <g>.

2. This is hard. The go-to would be Jane Austen (just to silence all the critics who are SURE they know what she meant). But I might have to go with Elizabeth Gaskell. She was a pretty revolutionary person for her time and it might be fun to bring her to the 21st century to see how feminism and worker's rights worked out. Mary Wollstonecraft might be interesting as well.

3. Stephen King

[jenks]

quote:"Eliza"...
If you could spend an afternoon or evening talking with a favorite author, or one you think you would find interesting, who would that be? For fun, let's have three choices.

[b]1. A current romance author:[/b]
[b]2. A classics author from the past[/b] (like the literary ones taught in school*)[b]:[/b]
[b]3. Any author, from any time, any discipline:[/b]

It's up to you whether you want to include reasons or not.

*[b]N.B.[/b] Edited to clarify which kind of classics I meant, like Homer, for instance.[/quote]


Hum... what a interesting question....let's see. I want to add I would have several of each different set of Authors, I would just LOVE to chat with and pick their brains...but I guess I will stick to one favorite each.

My current Romance Author I would like to spend the afternoon or evening with would be... Nora Roberts.
My reasons...She was one of the very few Authors of Romance I cut my teeth on when I started to read romance novels. I enjoy reading most of her books and she has several series of books that are some of my favorites. I really enjoy most of her Trilogies. Like the; The Gallaghers of Ardmore Trilogy, The Key Trilogy, The Sign of Seven Trilogy, The Circle Trilogy, The Three Sisters Island Trilogy, In the Garden Trilogy and I also enjoy her J.D. Robb series of books.

The Classic Author I would really enjoy most to chat with would be...
Jane Austen.
To be an anonymous "female" writer in a predominantly male profession in 18th and 19th century is quite a feat. I think it's a shame that Austen's novels were liked, but were not in any way popular, won her little fame or fortune. All because she failed to conform to the NORM of the Romantic and Victorian expectations that powerful emotions were not the done kind of thing and any kind of display of those strong emotions were tantamount of committing social suicide. Her satire and somewhat comic writing that poked at and highlighted the plight of the gentry women's total dependence on the right marriage to a established and titled man for a more secure social standing and economic security, was part of the fundamental transition or movement to 19th century & present day realism.

My Any Author would be... Stephen King.
His novels were the first novels or books I read for fun and entertainment while growing up. I loved anything that had to do with horror, thrillers and the supernatural. Being bored was not a option at our house and we didn't have cable TV, so we had to read. I had no interest in romance at that time and biographies were just not my kind of thing so my mother gave me for Christmas the novels; Skeleton Crew, The Shining, Cugo, Night Shift, Salem's Lot and Firestarter. I devoured those books by Easter, so for every holiday and birthday I would get several new books by King, Koontz, McCammon, Straub and several others. I still have almost all my original novels from that Christmas. I have all his books in hardback and I admit his books are the only novels I buy in hardback.

[Charlotte McClain]

I'm in the "don't want to meet" camp. I've met a few, shocking I know, but some I have disliked personally so much that I can't read their books.

As for cannon authors I would like to follow Byron around just for the freakshow aspect or ask Harper Lee why, why, why didn't she ever write another book?

I do love Joseph Campbell, but I think if I met him I'd just sit at his feet and listen and I can do that thanks to the Moyers interviews.
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