Who is Your Favourite Author?

Who is your favorite published author? The one who you love to read and make a dash to the bookstore to buy their books?  Everyone has one, and everyone who writes tends to mimic them when they first begin to write.

Maybe I should ask why did you want to become a writer?  Is it because of their writing?  

I have my reasons, and so do most other writers- it usually begin with “my favourite author was”.  It could be ones who wrote some wonderful writing and then wrote on how they got their work published, or it could be as simple as a someone who taught a writing course, and then showed you their own published works.  The one who offered advice and help when you didn’t think your work would be good enough.  Or, maybe they simply made you dream your own dream of becoming a published author

My own personal authors who made me dream of becoming a writer are: Terry Brooks and Harry Turtledove. In their own fashion they both tell excellent stories.  They are accomplished writers who between the two of them have more than 70 novels to their credit.

My reason for becoming a writer is the novel the Sword of Shannara. Not so much because it is an excellent book, but because the story kept me interested for the nearly 800 pages, it’s considered an older fantasy, as it was published in 1977.  It is itself a homage to the great fantasy writer J. R. R. Tolkien.  it was also one of the first books I bought with my own money (when I bought it I was eleven years old– and I wanted a big book, it was the biggest I could find, baring Gone with the Wind).

As for Harry Turtledove, history is my favorite subject and anyone who can take a fact of history and make the reader ask the question “Why?” is a good writer in terms of keeping it fascinating.  His is called the master of alternate history for a reason, and while I do enjoy his work, I can understand and learn from him about what it take to publish a science fiction book that is both believable and grounded in history.  I am not suggesting that either writer should win a major literary award, but rather they keep a reader interesting which is important to any writer who want their books published.

This is one of the main reasons why I think of them as the writers who made me dream of becoming a writer myself.  It is with gratitude I learned about them at a young age.