What author would you have dinner with/what would you ask?

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Mira
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Re: What author would you have dinner with/what would you ask?

Post by Mira » December 13th, 2009, 11:27 pm

Marla -

Who should we call for catering? Julia Child, of course! :)

I enjoy Patricia Wrede too. Hav you read the Enchanted Chocolate Pot? That's a fun one. It came out of a writing group - the two authors wrote letters back and forth in character, and then decided to create a book out of it. Kind of cool. :)

So, you know who else I'd like to invite? Tokien. He could teach me Elvish.

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Re: What author would you have dinner with/what would you ask?

Post by Nick » December 14th, 2009, 11:08 am

Just one author? Dunno. I assume the dead count?

Old John Ronald Reuel is most definitely on my list. Leo Tolstoy is a very high candidate as well. Actually, yeah, probably Tolstoy. Tolkien is the reason I became interested in writing and from interviews and family stories and things, he sounds like he'd be a lot of fun to be around, but imagine the conversation with Tolstoy! Would love to discuss Shakespeare with the man. I rather share his sentiments regarding the old fellow.

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Re: What author would you have dinner with/what would you ask?

Post by trini » December 14th, 2009, 1:52 pm

JRR, Tolstoy, Shakespeare...I would have to add Mark Twain to that list...and Carl Sagan.
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Re: What author would you have dinner with/what would you ask?

Post by ladymarella » December 15th, 2009, 12:06 am

Shakespeare, Emily bronte and Suzanne Collins
Currently composing a sprawling family saga set in 19th century England
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Re: What author would you have dinner with/what would you ask?

Post by casnow » December 27th, 2009, 2:16 pm

I think It would have to be Chris Moore - the guy is hilarious, down to earth, and writes some awesome stuff. If there is any writer I could emulate, it would be him.

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Re: What author would you have dinner with/what would you ask?

Post by MickRooney » January 4th, 2010, 9:39 pm

OK, I agree, rules changed. It'd definitely go with a dinner for eight, me and seven motley crew.

Here's my bunch round the big table!

Ernest Hemmingway
Thomas Pynchon
Paolo Coelho
Carlos Ruiz Zafon
John Steinbeck
Franz Kafka
William S Burrows
Me

Me and Kafka would pretty quickly abandon our steaks and run for cover in the drawing room while Coelho tried desperately to reason and separate Hemmingway, Steinbeck and Burrows. Pynchon, Zafon and Coelho would bare the argy-bargy for a while, but eventually leave the heavy-weights to slog it out in the back garden, and join me and Kafka in the drawing room. Things would get intellectually heated after an hour or two there, and most probably, Coelho would head home early in a spiritual huff. Me, Kafka, and possibly Zafon, depending on whether he minded crashing out on a bed upstairs with Pynchon, would share a pizza and a cab home. We'd phone each other in the morning and try to piece together who ate what, who hit who, who ate the last pizza slice without saying, and had anyone seen or heard from Kafka since we dropped him off at the bus stop!
Last edited by MickRooney on January 4th, 2010, 9:55 pm, edited 4 times in total.
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Re: What author would you have dinner with/what would you ask?

Post by MickRooney » January 4th, 2010, 9:48 pm

And by the way, will someone if they see Kafka, tell him he left his umbrella in the back of the cab and he's not getting it back unless he says sorry for sulking all night.
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Re: What author would you have dinner with/what would you ask?

Post by knight_tour » January 5th, 2010, 6:10 am

Several years ago I was actually invited to dinner in Beijing with a writer I really enjoy - Lawrence Watt-Evans. I read his Lure of the Basalisk when I was a teen, back in the eighties. Part of me wanted so badly to go to this dinner, but I chickened out. I figured I would only have the same old boring questions for him, while I would prefer to be entertaining and interesting. I know I can be (at times), but I feared I wouldn't be able to pull it off in front of a (relative) celebrity.

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Re: What author would you have dinner with/what would you ask?

Post by abc » January 8th, 2010, 11:09 am

I'm pretty sure dinner (or drinks, of course drinks) would be fun with Megan McCafferty. I know she'd crack me up. I'd also like to dish with Garret Freymann-Weyr because her books are most representative of the books I'd like to be writing for YA (and the one I have written and am trying to put more damn plot into).

good question!

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Re: What author would you have dinner with/what would you ask?

Post by knight_tour » January 13th, 2010, 1:53 am

I guess I would love to have dinner with Dennis McKiernan. I would like to know how he managed to get his first books published, even though they were so clearly derivative of Tolkien. I think they were great. I don't bash them for having so many plot points directly lifted from Tolkien, because his telling was so fresh and interesting anyhow. I just can't imagine how he convinced an agent. I have similar issues, because my major plot points are nothing new, though my story and characters are fresh. I am not having trouble with the book; it is writing a query letter that is the problem, since I can't make the plot points stand out. It would be nice to get his take on it.

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Re: What author would you have dinner with/what would you ask?

Post by InkSoldier » January 16th, 2010, 1:48 pm

Erica Orloff, though I've known her over the net for nearly two years(and have learned a ton) I would adore the chance to have dinner and just talk about writing and life in general. She's like Budda, only prettier.

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Re: What author would you have dinner with/what would you ask?

Post by taylormillgirl » January 17th, 2010, 11:18 am

Jen Lancaster. She's not my favorite author or anything, but dinner and drinks with her would be a riot! I wouln't ask anything in particular. We'd just make random snarky observations and people watch.
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Re: What author would you have dinner with/what would you ask?

Post by MaryLA » January 19th, 2010, 8:00 am

Eight authors at the table! Some posters here are very brave.

I read Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall over Christmas and I'd love to have her around for supper. I'd serve venison and hope she isn't vegetarian. I'd love to hear more about her life in Botswana and Saudi Arabia. Over a berried pavlova I'd ask all about her autobiographical experience of giving up the ghost and how she came to write the terrifying Beyond Black and then we could gossip about Thomas Cromwell and Anne Boleyn.

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Re: What author would you have dinner with/what would you ask?

Post by Elana Johnson » January 19th, 2010, 11:56 pm

Oooh, cool thread!

I'd dine with:

Scott Westerfed
John Green
Suzanne Collins
Sara Zarr
Stephenie Meyer
J.K. Rowling

And... maybe only dinner for seven? Yeah, let's go with that.

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Re: What author would you have dinner with/what would you ask?

Post by Anavaz » January 20th, 2010, 11:47 am

I'm algo going with a dinner for more than two. Here's my list:

For incredible imagination:
Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
J.R.R. Tolkien
J.K. Rowling


For good Plotting (and research):
Dan Brown

Just because I love their books:
Jane Austen
Charlotte Bronte
Julia Quinn
Catherine Anderson
Nora Roberts
Debbie Macomber

Okay that's enough, I'm going to have to rent out a place to fit everyone.

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