If you could meet one author in person, living or dead, who would it be and why did you choose them?
If you could meet one author in person, living or dead, who would it be and why did you choose them?
I’m lucky to get to meet a lot of authors. We have a lot living locally so often invite authors to book club discussions.
We also have the amazing Texas Book Festival which brings in around 300 authors each year. They are usually happy to stop and chat while they are moving about.
There are a number of bookstores that have author events.
Finally, there are several bookish events sponsored by various departments at the university each year.
I’m grateful to have such amazing access.
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Such a difficult question! After some reflection, I think I would like to meet Viktor Frankl, author of Man’s Search for Meaning. Written after WWII and the Holocaust, he details his imprisonment in German concentration camps, the loss of his wife and family, and the need for purpose in life. I don’t know the questions I would ask him, but just to be in his presence and learn from his strength and kindness would be enough.
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C’mon, @Anne_Glasgow, you must name names! LOL. Don’t leaving us hanging like that!
Seriously, I’m curious about who you’ve met.
But the question is which author would you like to meet, living or dead, and why?
The first author that came to my mind is Margaret Atwood. Her writing is so imaginative, and I’ve heard she’s a brilliant public speaker - very articulate and witty. Political, too.
And I’m going to cheat and name another (I can do one living and one dead, right?): Isaac Asimov, largely for the same reasons.
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But that’s the point. Over the years I’ve met most of the authors I wanted to meet: Greg Iles, Abraham Verghese, S A Cosby, Cebo Campbell, Anne Rice, Amor Towles, Hanif Abduraquib, Dan Rather, Margaret Atwood, Stephen King, Lauren Bacall, Percival Everett, Levar Burton, Cokie Roberts, Stephen Harrigan, Sarah Bird, Edward Carey, Elizabeth McCracken, Lawrence Wright, Dominic Smith, and the list goes on.
I don’t know of anyone deceased that I’m that anxious to meet.
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Oh, it must have been something meeting Lauren Bacall. Among others, of course!
Lauren Bacall was incredibly kind and attentive. I still haven’t read the book she signed though. 
Oh, no question about it–Harper Lee. Being from Kansas, I’d love to hear her stories about being in Holcomb with Capote gathering material for “In Cold Blood” (& address the rumors she wrote part of the book), not to mention any & everything about “To Kill a Mockingbird” (and meeting Gregory Peck!).
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Cocktails with Ernest Hemingway in Paris of course. He’d regale all with debauched, violent and hilarious stories. Wouldn’t that be amazing? We’d laugh man would we laugh. And that fist fight was something! Hope he liked me.
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Oh my gosh, @Russ_B, you’re right. That would be amazing.
I haven’t narrowed my choice down yet, but agree that Viktor Frankl’s book leaves a lasting impression. I was so impressed by his resilience in the darkest hours of his life and his ability to take tragedy and use what he experienced so that others could learn from him.
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Is breakfast, lunch or dinner included in this meeting?
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I’m picking an alive and a dead author: Barbara Kingsolver (for Demon Copperhead) and Charles Dickens (for David Copperfield) because though their stories are more than a century apart, I think it’d be interesting to talk about the influences in their life that shaped each story and most especially how they each found a way to weave faith into stories that were filled with so much sorrow.
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Of course a meal is included! I think it would absolutely be beneficial to have a bit of alcohol involved.
I love your two choices, BTW, especially if you could get both of them in the room at the same time.
This will no doubt be the oddest answer you receive, but I would like to meet Margaret Mitchell. Most people know little about her life, but she was a fascinating character in her own right. Born in 1900 she was raised by well-to-do and educated parents and subject to the influences of a region for whom the Civil War had never ended. Her epic novel Gone with the Wind was published in 1936; she died in 1949, having never written another book.
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The first person that came to mind is Catherine Cookson because she was the first author I read as a teenager and I read every book of hers I could find. And when I went to London I had to go to the library to see her books on the shelf. A living author would be Ruta Septys and Mark T. Sullivan because I admire their writing.
I feel many people have not heard of Jose Saramago, now deceased, but I find him to be one of the most intriguing authors I’ve ever read. He is likely best known for his novel Blindness. I would want to ask him about how he came up with the ideas for his novels and why he uses almost no punctuation or capitalization. To read his novels, requires full immersion in the text with no distractions. He truly transports you to another time and place and asks very difficult questions about life.
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