Catching up on Classics (and lots more!) discussion

Last month I asked for ideas for questions. This question came from RJ; thank you.

Have you met any authors in person? Who was it and what were the circumstances?

I will start. I am related to two authors, that I know of. One was a very distant cousin who actually died on the Titanic, so I never met him. His name is Jacques Futrelle.

But someone I knew who published a book is my great grandfather. He was a professor of Engineering and eventually Dean of Engineering (as well as Athletic Director) at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. Some of his lectures were published in a volume, Student, teacher, and engineer;: Selected speeches and articles of Nathan W. Dougherty Beyond just teaching Engineering, he spoke on the topic of what would today be called "Motivational Speaking". He was known at being excellent at encouraging and inspiring people.

Nathan Washington Dougherty was in his 90s when he passed away. I was a teenager. I never knew my great grandmother. I remember we called him Great Grandfather Dougherty. His house on "professor's row" was long gone when I met him (bulldozed to make way for larger buildings), and he lived in an apartment. We would walk together as a family to the faculty dining hall where he was often the center of attention. His apartment was lined with books in cases with glass doors. There were so many books that they were even in the hallway. He said he read two or three books every week even in his 90s.

Oh I remembered another author. A joke around my house is that I call him "my good friend Henry". I met Henry Winkler at a table where he was promoting his book series, and we spoke for a while because I teach the age group he was targeting with his books. Henry has dyslexia and the main character in his books does too. The Zippety Zinger is one book in his series.

He was so very nice. He genuinely focused on every person he spoke to. There were multiple tables with books, presentations and other products in the Convention Center in Chattanooga. It was a lovely surprise to meet him there.

Lynn wrote: "I will start. I am related to two authors, that I know of. One was a very distant cousin who actually died on the Titanic, so I never met him. His name is Jacques Futrelle."

Lynn, that is an impressive connection. I encountered several of his short stories in an anthology I worked through from 2015-2017, 75+ Classic Mystery Stories. It inspired me to learn more about him and seek out more of his stories. Agatha Christie was said to have been inspired by him.

I also (more recently) read The Titanic Murders by Max Allan Collins, a fictionalized account of the Titanic that featured Futrelle and wife (also a writer) as main characters. According to the prologue, he was able to meet with their daughter, Virginia, before she passed, and she shared memories of her parents and how the tragedy affected them. She sounds like she was quite a character in her own right.

I've always meant to go to readings and meet authors, but haven't gotten there much yet. On the bucket list.

I did meet two: David Sedaris, fairly early in his career when I only knew him from hearing SantaLand Diaries on NPR, gave a reading locally and he was great. Also very personable and easy to talk with at the book signing. And before a trip to Europe with my Mom, we went to see Rick Steves at a travel bookstore. That was fun. My mom planned at least half the trip around his recommendations, and it was wonderful.

Really enjoying hearing these stories about authors!

By far, my favorite memory of meeting an author was when I met Lynda Barry. She was at the Drawn & Quarterly press booth at ComicCon in San Diego, and I recognized her immediately. I purchased a copy of one of her books and asked her to sign it, and we had a long conversation about her hilarious, self-deprecating (over the top) recount of her experience of the infamous hanging chad election of 2000 in the USA in one of her books. I told her my own story of those times, and we had a great laugh together. She talked to Ron and I for quite a while. I have never met a funnier or more gracious person in my life. It blew away any expectations I might have had if I had even had an inkling that I was going to meet her. Anyway, I highly recommend her hilarious series of auto-biographical "Marlys" graphic novels, especially One Hundred Demons. Her fiction like The Good Times are Killing Me is also good, but the graphic novels are something special.

Another cherished memory is meeting the Native American poet Linda Hogan after a poetry reading near the University of Arizona in the USA. She had such a kind and observant presence; I immediately felt something palpably special about her, even though I hadn't read much of her work yet at the time. Since then, I've read several of her books, including my personal favorite Savings. She's equally accomplished in fiction and poetry.

One not so nice memory is getting my book signed by Margaret Atwood. Everyone has bad days. God knows I do; so I don't hold any judgement about it. But she was very brusque, and she made some sharp remarks separately to both me and another friend who was further up in line, and I heard her say something nasty to yet another person prior to that. I suppose when you have a massive line of people as she did, it must get tiring. It doesn't stop me from loving her books. I'm not sure I'd feel too keen to get another book signed by her though. :)

Also, I was lucky in that there were quite a few authors in residence at University of Arizona over the years that I was in that area, including Joy Williams, Barbara Kingsolver, Joy Harjo, and others. I had some contact with some of those. The university had a wonderful poetry center and creative writing program.

The most famous person/author I have ever met is James Patterson. He is SO NICE. I was at BookExpo many years ago where he was doing a signing. At the end of the day, a group of my friends and my boss were between the escalators and the wall, organizing our books so we could carry them all home as easily as possible. We didn’t realize that we were somewhat blocking the path to the bathrooms further back. A rather ordinary looking older white guy was winding his way through the group to get to the bathroom. My boss looked up and said, “Hello Mr. Patterson!” Suddenly, all 10-12 of us were clambering for a photo. He was so kind. He said, “Two pictures.” And posed. We snapped two pictures and said thank you and he went on his way. The poor man, I didn’t realize until til after my boss said something about him probably having to go to the bathroom, but he stopped for that photo anyway, without being mean or rude. He was so gracious! I will never forget that.

Heather L wrote: "Lynn wrote: "I will start. I am related to two authors, that I know of. One was a very distant cousin who actually died on the Titanic, so I never met him. His name is Jacques Futrelle




Ok Starting here is Lynn's response. It frustrates me when the responses are in italics. I can never seem to fix that.
Wow, I had no idea that he was mentioned by Agatha Christie as an inspiration. I always thought he was somewhat obscure! Thanks for the inspiration. I just purchased The Jacques Futrelle Megapack.

Lynn wrote: "It frustrates me when the responses are in italics. I can never seem to fix that...."

Hi Lynn, it could be that when you do a "Reply", there is part of an author or book link at the end of the reply. To fix it, just delete the partially formed information.

For example, if at the end of your reply it has:

"X wrote: I am talking about the author [author:Jac..."

Just delete the "[author:Jac" part at the end of what it puts at the top of your message after you click the reply button. Goodreads gets mixed up if it has a partially formed author or book link in a post, and it messes up everything afterwards.

I spent an afternoon with Shell Silverstein about 1968 and met Hunter Thompson when I worked for George McGovern in 1972.

Terry wrote: "I spent an afternoon with Shell Silverstein about 1968 and met Hunter Thompson when I worked for George McGovern in 1972."

That sounds awesome :)

I met Alan Dean Foster when he came to the Mesa Public Library when I was in high school. He talked about writing and also answered a lot of questions. Then he spent time signing books. I still have some of his signed paperbacks around, somewhere.

Thank you Lynn for using my question this month. Another one that would go hand in hand with this one would be "What author would you like to meet and what would you talk about?"

I guess I’ve met three, though they haven’t been overly impactful.
⬦ I met Tobias Wolff in 1995 at a reading, but just long enough to get a signature.
⬦ I met Joy Harjo at a poetry reading. My wife & I showed up like 45 minutes early, so we just sat in the auditorium to chat. She came out on stage to check the sound set up, and sat there playing a steel-drum app on her iPad for most of the time while waiting! We chatted a bit, but not much.
⬦ I met Anna Lee Waldo, who wrote a book called Prairie: The Legend of Charles Burton Irwin and the Y6 Ranch. C.B. Irwin is my great great uncle, and she came to interview his niece (my grandmother) a couple of times while doing her research for the book. My grandma was quite old by then, and she was living with us.

I think the only author I've met was back when I was a teenager in school (back in the late 1970s) and our English teacher knew Alan Garner and invited him in to a lesson!

I failed to mention the many authors I have met that have written books of interest to my profession, landscape architecture. I will mention only the two most famous ones, whom I met while a student at UCLA in the 1970s, whose names perhaps a few of you may recognize: Ian McHarg (Design with Nature)and Garret Eckbo (Landscape for Living).

Terry wrote: "I failed to mention the many authors I have met that have written books of interest to my profession, landscape architecture. I will mention only the two most famous ones, whom I met while a studen..."

Oh that's a good thought. I attended a lecture by Ron Clark who wrote The Essential 55 a teachers' inspirational book which was all the rage for a few years. I met him briefly that day. He still had his "stage persona" on when we shook hands.

I refrained from commenting on this thread because the authors I met with professionally came first to my mind .... and there were many, of course, because in academia *everyone* publishes (including me). There are quite a few, though, who are known outside the small world of the subject matter in question, especially when the subject is in fashion, as happens from time to time (I'm talking about AI).

So yes, I've met a lot of authors - just not many authors of fiction.

Jen (Finally changed her GR pic) wrote: "The most famous person/author I have ever met is James Patterson. He is SO NICE. I was at BookExpo many years ago where he was doing a signing. At the end of the day, a group of my friends and my b..."

What do you mean, the poor man?

Hi Luffy, I meant to”poor man” because he had to go to the bathroom and we pulled him from his mission for a photo op. We didn’t realize he had to go, but he was very gracious about our request for a picture with him nevertheless. It was a large group to organize and decide who stood where, whose camera to take the picture with, who was taking the picture, etc. It wasn’t a quick thing.

Jen (Finally changed her GR pic) wrote: "Hi Luffy, I meant to”poor man” because he had to go to the bathroom and we pulled him from his mission for a photo op. We didn’t realize he had to go, but he was very gracious about our request for..."

Thanks for explaining, Jen. I was making a joke about his income.

Sorry I missed the joke Luffy. 😳 I’m slightly embarrassed now. 🫣

Don't be. I was nearly embarrassed about making a joke about a man who needed to visit the loo. But technically that joke was not potty humour.

Luffy (Oda's Version) wrote: "Don't be. I was nearly embarrassed about making a joke about a man who needed to visit the loo. But technically that joke was not potty humour."

was that another joke?
you really need to start adding winky smileys
;o)

I spent Tuesday evening last week at an event hosted by one of the local bookshops for the Fun Lovin' Crime Writers. It included Val McDermid, Luca Veste, Doug Johnstone, Chris Brookmyre, Mark Billingham and Stuart Neville. The authors spoke about their latest books and, as they are known for their music, played a few songs, including a very bad rendition of Stand and Deliver! They're in Liverpool to practice for Glastonbury which is a big UK music festival of all things. https://funlovincrimewriters.com/about/

I've gone to a lot of book launches in my life, memorably Chris Riddell who drew as he talked. And where I am in the UK, there are a lot of book festivals. Last year I went to talks by Elif Shafak and Michael Lewis in Manchester and Natalie Haynes in Chester.

I'm going down to the Cotswolds on Friday for my second food and agriculture literary festival (https://www.farm-ed.co.uk/event-detai...) (brilliant lunch and ice cream included!) and is booked to be in Stirling for Bloody Scotland in September (https://bloodyscotland.com/). My favourite last year was the Welsh Crime Festival in Aberystwyth (https://gwylcrimecymrufestival.co.uk/) and Newcastle Noir at the end of the year (https://newcastlenoir.co.uk/).

From a knowing authors personally perspective, I am friends with Robbie Cheadle, my sister-in-law is a published non-fiction author, my brother-in-law is an author and we lived next to an author when I was a child (his books are now out of print).