Top Ten Tuesday: Top Ten Authors I’ve Met

Mitchell worked at the University of Idaho,–I don’t remember in what kind of position at the time, who taught the occasional weekend workshop on writing. I attended two of them—they were essentially the same thing each time. One was about Science Fiction writing and the other was about writing a Star Trek novel; there was some generic writing advice that you could get pretty much anywhere—but it was illustrated by some behind-the-scenes stuff with the Star Trek novels and Paramount. That was really interesting, I should point out—but not helpful. Then she’d just tell stories about the novels she’d published with them, those in the works, and (I believe) one that had been cancelled. Again, not helpful, but a lot of fun. I owned one of her books (The Next Generation novel Imbalance) and had read another ST Original novel that my roommate owned, so I was able to talk a little bit about those with her—and she kindly signed my ____.

Lance was an instructor at the University of Idaho when I was there and taught a couple of Lit and a couple of Creative Writing courses I took. I’ve also met him at a couple of appearances he did after I graduated when he toured the State as part of his tenure as Idaho Writer in Residence. It’s safe to say that he’s had more influence on my reading than just about any person I mention on the blog.

I’ve met Scalzi twice now when he’s been hosted by the Boise Public Library for readings/signings—he’s great about taking time for a quick conversation with the people in line. I remember the first time him saying something about owning the same shirt I was wearing—I told him when he posted a picture of himself in it saying it was the ugliest shirt he owned, I was mildly offended. He laughed and gave as sincere an apology as such a comment was worth.

Shane Kuhn did a reading/signing at Rediscovered Bookstore that was so sparsely attended I felt sorry for him (sorrier yet that I could only buy one book at the time; I wanted to buy 20). He didn’t let it visibly get to him and was great with the maybe 5 people (plus bookstore staff) present. We had a brief chat during the signing—probably could’ve gone longer without bothering anyone had I been able to come up with more to say.

I’ve met Johnson at three readings/signings and have not acquitted myself well at any of them. Utterly becoming tongue-tied somehow—thankfully I’m usually accompanied by an outgoing friend at these. It’s not being star-struck, I don’t think, and he seems friendly and chatty with other people in line—but something about him turns me into Chris Farley interviewing Paul McCartney, “Remember when you were in The Beatles? Was that cool?”

Devri’s publicist (or something, my memory is fuzzy on the details) got me to read one of her books and she took part in a Q&A as well. After that, I think I read another book (maybe it was an ARC) before I attended an event she was part of at Rediscovered Bookstore. From there, we ran into each other at a Comic Con, another event of hers, and then just randomly at a bookstore. It’s always fun to run into her.

After some correspondence related to his books, Billups invited me to get coffee with him a few years back—in the end, it came out to be a lot like some of the HC Chat videos I’ve done lately—just without being recorded (rats). It was a lot of fun hearing about trying to make it as an indie picture book author in Idaho. He’s a super nice, guy, too.

I saw an advertisement for an in-store signing for E.N. Crane—which was (sadly) the first I’d heard of her. Her work looked interesting, so I popped in. We had a fun chat about her work, some of our favorite mystery series, and a few other things. I’ve stopped by her booth at a few local bookish events since then, it’s always a blast. We rarely talk about her books, for some reason, most of the conversation is about other things—and contains a lot of laughs.

Given her popularity and the length of the line behind us, my daughter and I didn’t have a lot of time to chat with Day, but I was able to get her to sign my copy of her memoir, You’re Never Weird on the Internet (Almost), at a Supernatural con a few years ago. We were able to chat briefly about it and her other book, and how I appreciated having her as a role model to point my daughter to for geeky creativity.

After some email correspondence and Becky taking part in a Q&A and other things here, she and her husband graciously invited me to be a guest on their podcast, Let Me Tell You a Story. They had me over to their house for the recording—and were wonderful hosts before sitting us all down behind the microphones and hitting “record.”