Top ten list: authors I would like to meet

I saw this idea for a top ten list at Random Musings. It’s flattering — I’m on it — and I agree: this is what Twitter is for. Besides random kitten pictures and sharing amusing pop-culture phenomena (The Dress!), it’s for letting people “meet” when otherwise they just wouldn’t, or at least not for the casual-chat kind of thing.

My list would actually be for bloggers-and-authors-I-have-met-or-would-like-to-meet, and it’d be partly parallel with Brandy’s list because we follow a lot of the same people. I think I’ll break it into fives because that’s easier:

Five authors I am always happy to bump into:

Sarah Prineas — she gave me really useful feedback about Black Dog and Pure Magic, and I can tell you, her advice is killer when it comes to characterization.

Deb Coates — Deb has dogs and does tracking, so we’ve always had stuff to talk on the rare occasions when we’ve met in person. Plus I loved her first trilogy.

Merrie Haskell — you all know how much I have loved her first three books. I am THERE for whatever she writes next.

Greg van Eekhout — he is great at the snappy one-liners to which Twitter is so well suited. Plus his dog is cute. If I knew I was going to be meeting him again this year, though, I would have to instantly read California Bones because I haven’t yet.

Sharon Shinn — she lives in St Louis, so we do sometimes meet. She’s a wonderful person and I’m sorry she isn’t active on-line, but we are occasional-email friends.

Five authors I have met once or not at all and would really like to go out for “coffee” with. Gosh, it’s hard to narrow this down to five. But here goes:

Martha Wells — we were on a panel together once. At the Worldcon in Chicago a few years ago, maybe? I remember that the other panelists talked about “world bibles” and the nuts and bolts of worldbuilding and Martha and I were like, What? Why not just write the book and let the world build itself?

Tamora Pierce, because hey. I have hardly ever been more flattered in my life as I was when she told me how much she loves my books.

Sarah Monette

Lois McMaster Bujold

Megan Whelan Turner. I would really like to chat with her about how she handles pov in her Queen’s Thief series. Her handling of that issue is unique in my experience and I would be really interested to know how much of that kind of thing she decides on analytically and how much she does by feel.

Five authors I have “met” on Twitter, but it would be snazzy to meet in person:

Andrea K Höst

Laura Florand

Sage Blackwood

Stephanie Burgis

Theresa Romain

Five bloggers I have “met” on Twitter, but it would be snazzy to meet in person:

Brandy at Random Musings

Maureen at By Singing Light

Chachic at Chachic’s Book Nook

Charlotte at Charlotte’s Library

Heidi at Bunbury in the Stacks. Heidi is not very active online right now (her life got cluttered with real life things, but in a good way). But she’s definitely on my list.

Incidentally, I’m as shy as the next person about approaching people I don’t know, so I understand that hesitation. If any of you (on this list or otherwise) happen to see me at a convention, say Worldcon in 2016, I would love to meet you.