Jeremy, consider this your Tag Back; or, In Which I Finally Decide To List My Favorite Authors
Wow. There's been a distinct lack of Stuff Happening on the Internet in the past day. It's shocking. Kathryn Erskine's Mockingbird, which I loved, won the NBA for Young People's Lit last night, and there's not even much chatter about THAT, even though it's apparently a love-it-or-hate-it book (and I really wish some of the haters would JUST SHUT UP. I mean, entitled to their opinion is one thing, but "Anyone who could LIKE this is just WRONG!" REEEEELY gets annoying after awhile. Particularly to someone who liked it). (Of course, maybe the haters just-shutting-up is why there has been so little activity on the Internet-- or at least my friends' page and feed reader-- in the past day. Careful what you wish for). On the other hand, two of my friends (actual friends, in fact, not just Friended people) did get into a long discussion about an obscure picture book on my Facebook Wall, which should be a plus for Interesting Internet Chatter anywhere.
I have just a little bit left to do on One Book, and am only waiting for my flyer-for-my-Picture-Book-Family-Program to pass inspection before I can make copies of it (which is the last thing I need to do to prepare for said program). So now would be one of those brilliant I-Have-Time moments for me to post something. I have this notebook at home that I've been freewriting in for the past, oh, half-year or so, and I find that, of all the Possible Interesting Blog Essay Topics I've accumulated in that time, mostly I've ended up getting all my feelings on those topics out IN THERE instead of on here, since my computer time is more limited and tightly scheduled, so my desire to actually share that stuff with ACTUAL PEOPLE WHO AREN'T IN MY HEAD has diminished slightly. So much for communication.
A Facebook friend tagged me the other day to list 15 Favorite Authors in 15 Minutes, but this reminded me that someone actually asked me to list my Favorite Authors a long time ago, and because I had to debate about this for a long time, and write descriptions of everyone, and so on, I have had a draft on this subject saved in my email since, I don't know, February maybe? Which seems like a bit of a cheat on the "15 Minutes" thing. But, since you asked, and since I don't have anything better to do, here you go:
My absolute favorite author:
Madeleine L'Engle --You know this already. You know this because I yell at you if you spell my daughter's name without the "e" before the "i." This woman could squeeze the entire universe into every sentence, making even her most mundane realistic fiction feel as cosmic as her sweeping science fantasies, and her sweeping science fantasies were very cosmic indeed. I do not love everything she's ever written-- some of it I don't even like. But it ALWAYS makes me think, and wonder, and feel like there is most definitely order to the universe.
Favorite authors who do not fall into any of the separate categories I have listed below, in alphabetical order because ranking them is too difficult and/or impossible:
Douglas Adams --um, makes me laugh. Because I like weird. I don't have any other explanation.
Jane Austen --once said something about her work being a miniature painted on a bit of ivory-- not grand, but PERFECT. Details bringing people to life! And of course, the irony-- did we mention the irony?
Diana Wynne Jones --has a link in her brain to another dimension. Several other dimensions. What she does is just CHANNEL what she sees in those other dimensions onto paper, so that all her characters and settings and happenings and so forth just COME ALIVE. I SWEAR it all actually happened somewhere in the multiverse.
Lois Lowry --is notable for being the only person on this entire list that I have actually met. SHE INTIMIDATED THE CRAP OUT OF ME. I'm not sure how much was her or how much was ME though! She is one of those people who can write in a broad variety of styles and genres and write BRILLIANTLY in ALL of them.
L. M. Montgomery --is someone I actually haven't read anything by in a very long time, so it's quite possible she is no longer one of my favorites, but that is highly unlikely, seeing how much influence she had on me in my youth.
Terry Pratchett --has an incredible sense of TIMING the way great comic actors do, somehow making it come across in text. This is probably why, upon immediately finishing the first book I ever read by him, I felt compelled to read it aloud to Danny, who happened to be there to have it foisted upon him. It is writing you can hear as you read.
People who I often think of as my favorite authors but I don't feel quite right claiming them as such because I've only read one work (in multiple parts though they be) by each:
Lewis Carroll --I have only read the Alice books, but if they aren't the most fantastically twisted books of all time... how can I not love him?
Diane Duane --reading the Young Wizards series is like reading the Time Quartet Continued. Apparently she is quite well-known writing scifi franchise books as well.
C. S. Lewis --Sure, I love Narnia, but I think what I appreciate most about Lewis is how he always spoke with such respect for children and childhood, even though the majority of his work (everything not Narnia, really) was not for that audience.
J. K. Rowling --seven obsessively fun books. What will she come up with next, and will it be nearly as fun? Who knows?
J. R. R. Tolkien --his writing meanders a bit too much, but come on, he could create a seriously memorable world-- more than a few great characters, too.
Guys who aren't actually my favorite authors at all, but I'll say they are just because I have a crush on them:
Mac Barnett
Dav Pilkey
What can I say, I have a thing for absurdity.
Other authors I considered putting on this list, of whom I might gush as if they are truly on the list after all, so why are you trusting my judgment to rank them anyway:
Lloyd Alexander
Avi
Natalie Babbitt
Agatha Christie
Roald Dahl
Lois Duncan
James Howe
Eva Ibbotson
E. L. Konigsburg
Gail Carson Levine
Robin McKinley
Tamora Pierce
Mark Twain
I have just a little bit left to do on One Book, and am only waiting for my flyer-for-my-Picture-Book-Family-Program to pass inspection before I can make copies of it (which is the last thing I need to do to prepare for said program). So now would be one of those brilliant I-Have-Time moments for me to post something. I have this notebook at home that I've been freewriting in for the past, oh, half-year or so, and I find that, of all the Possible Interesting Blog Essay Topics I've accumulated in that time, mostly I've ended up getting all my feelings on those topics out IN THERE instead of on here, since my computer time is more limited and tightly scheduled, so my desire to actually share that stuff with ACTUAL PEOPLE WHO AREN'T IN MY HEAD has diminished slightly. So much for communication.
A Facebook friend tagged me the other day to list 15 Favorite Authors in 15 Minutes, but this reminded me that someone actually asked me to list my Favorite Authors a long time ago, and because I had to debate about this for a long time, and write descriptions of everyone, and so on, I have had a draft on this subject saved in my email since, I don't know, February maybe? Which seems like a bit of a cheat on the "15 Minutes" thing. But, since you asked, and since I don't have anything better to do, here you go:
My absolute favorite author:
Madeleine L'Engle --You know this already. You know this because I yell at you if you spell my daughter's name without the "e" before the "i." This woman could squeeze the entire universe into every sentence, making even her most mundane realistic fiction feel as cosmic as her sweeping science fantasies, and her sweeping science fantasies were very cosmic indeed. I do not love everything she's ever written-- some of it I don't even like. But it ALWAYS makes me think, and wonder, and feel like there is most definitely order to the universe.
Favorite authors who do not fall into any of the separate categories I have listed below, in alphabetical order because ranking them is too difficult and/or impossible:
Douglas Adams --um, makes me laugh. Because I like weird. I don't have any other explanation.
Jane Austen --once said something about her work being a miniature painted on a bit of ivory-- not grand, but PERFECT. Details bringing people to life! And of course, the irony-- did we mention the irony?
Diana Wynne Jones --has a link in her brain to another dimension. Several other dimensions. What she does is just CHANNEL what she sees in those other dimensions onto paper, so that all her characters and settings and happenings and so forth just COME ALIVE. I SWEAR it all actually happened somewhere in the multiverse.
Lois Lowry --is notable for being the only person on this entire list that I have actually met. SHE INTIMIDATED THE CRAP OUT OF ME. I'm not sure how much was her or how much was ME though! She is one of those people who can write in a broad variety of styles and genres and write BRILLIANTLY in ALL of them.
L. M. Montgomery --is someone I actually haven't read anything by in a very long time, so it's quite possible she is no longer one of my favorites, but that is highly unlikely, seeing how much influence she had on me in my youth.
Terry Pratchett --has an incredible sense of TIMING the way great comic actors do, somehow making it come across in text. This is probably why, upon immediately finishing the first book I ever read by him, I felt compelled to read it aloud to Danny, who happened to be there to have it foisted upon him. It is writing you can hear as you read.
People who I often think of as my favorite authors but I don't feel quite right claiming them as such because I've only read one work (in multiple parts though they be) by each:
Lewis Carroll --I have only read the Alice books, but if they aren't the most fantastically twisted books of all time... how can I not love him?
Diane Duane --reading the Young Wizards series is like reading the Time Quartet Continued. Apparently she is quite well-known writing scifi franchise books as well.
C. S. Lewis --Sure, I love Narnia, but I think what I appreciate most about Lewis is how he always spoke with such respect for children and childhood, even though the majority of his work (everything not Narnia, really) was not for that audience.
J. K. Rowling --seven obsessively fun books. What will she come up with next, and will it be nearly as fun? Who knows?
J. R. R. Tolkien --his writing meanders a bit too much, but come on, he could create a seriously memorable world-- more than a few great characters, too.
Guys who aren't actually my favorite authors at all, but I'll say they are just because I have a crush on them:
Mac Barnett
Dav Pilkey
What can I say, I have a thing for absurdity.
Other authors I considered putting on this list, of whom I might gush as if they are truly on the list after all, so why are you trusting my judgment to rank them anyway:
Lloyd Alexander
Avi
Natalie Babbitt
Agatha Christie
Roald Dahl
Lois Duncan
James Howe
Eva Ibbotson
E. L. Konigsburg
Gail Carson Levine
Robin McKinley
Tamora Pierce
Mark Twain