Top Ten Authors I’d Love To Have Coffee With | aka I rave about Shakespeare *again*

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly prompt hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl and created by The Broke and the Bookish.

I am actually terrible at meeting authors. I completely freeze up and forget how my tongue works, I sometimes splutter “I LOVE YOUR BOOK” as I’m running away from the signing desk, and I will happily walk around the rest of the day clutching an important book to my chest.

Despite all of this, and the enormous anxiety that meeting my favourite authors brings me, there are still some fantastic writers I would love to meet (and flail in front of) preferably in front of a rather large latte.

(Also, the “top ten Tuesday” prompt never said they had to be alive. Heh.)

Rick Riordan

Rick Riordan (Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Heroes of Olympus, Magnus Chase, Trials of Apollo) – Rick’s books honestly mean the world to me, so meeting him would mean the world to me. Percy Jackson was a series integral to my growing up, and it’s still a huge part of my life today. But, let’s face it, if I met him I would probably just start crying.

Tom Pollock (White Rabbit Red Wolf, The Skyscraper Throne trilogy) – I have actually been lucky enough to meet Tom before – at YALC 2018. He was so lovely, but is on my TTT list because I would love to buy him a coffee and just pick his brain. He’s easily one of the most interesting people I’ve ever met in my life!

Chloe Seager

Chloe Seager (Emma Nash series) – TBH, Chloe’s on this list because when I met her, I got completely overwhelmed with anxiety and just spurted out “I LOVE YOUR BOOK” before running away. I would really love to say hi to her again, apologise, and say “I LOVE YOUR BOOK” but slightly more composed. Chloe, if you’re reading this, you probably don’t remember be but I’m sorry for being slightly bananas.

Kerri Maniscalco (Stalking Jack the Ripper series) – Stalking Jack is one of my ALL-TIME favourite series (I adore it so much, honestly) and I’d love to take Kerri out for coffee sometime and just pick her brain. The stories that she creates are something else. I’d love to have a chat about writing and murder.

Robin Stevens (Murder Most Unladylike series) – it’s no secret how much I adore Robin’s books, and it would be my dream to tell her that face-to-face. Her books are the reason I love crime fiction, and also the reason I’m taking The Art of Murder this year at university! Well, Wells & Wong and Truman Capote, but In Cold Blood was a little darker…

William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare (I’m not attempting this, sorry) – okay so my boy Shakespeare is on this list because HELLO, WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE?! I have SO MANY QUESTIONS for one of the greatest writers to EVER FRICKIN’ EXIST and CAN YOU TELL HOW EXCITED I AM at the PROSPECT of meeting him?! Okay, okay, I’ll stop.

Homer (The Odyssey, The Iliad) – alrighty, so I had Shakespeare, and now I have Homer. Why? Because I want to know WHO HE IS. That’s… literally the reason. But I’d also like to buy him (her? Heh) an espresso and send them back to write another epic poem.

Jane Austen (Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, Emma, Persuasion, etc.) – not only did Austen write her novels about 20 minutes from where I live, but she’s also been a huge influence on my life. I’d love to give her a hug and a G&T.

George Orwell

George Orwell (1984, Animal Farm, Homage to Catalonia etc.) – TBQH, I’m not entirely sure I’d like to meet one of my all-time favourite authors, because he scares me a little. Also, I think he’d be super disappointed in what the world has become. However, his essays (more so than the books of his that I’ve read, aside from Animal Farm) mean a lot to me, and I’d love to just sit and listen to him yabber on for a few hours on his reclusive island.

EM Forster (A Room With a View, Howard’s End, Where Angels Fear To Tread) – this is perhaps an unusual choice (and my reasoning is probably weirder), but I think that EM Forster writes women really well despite growing up and writing in the 1900s/1910s. I’d love to know what he actually thought about women in real life, and how he wrote them so well in a time when men were particularly bad at it (if you’ve ever read A Clergyman’s Daughter by Orwell, you’ll know what I mean!).

Who would be on your list if you could meet any author in the world?! Do any of the authors you’d like to meet match up with my list?

Until the next post,