15 Authors


Sometimes when I can't think of something to blog about, I take a run over to Facebook and...er...steal an idea. This morning, I saw this:

15 Authors who have influenced me: The Rules: Don't take too long to think about it. Fifteen authors who've influenced you and that will always stick with you. List the first 15 you can recall in no more than 15 minutes. 

I'm going to make my list in 15 minutes or less, but when I add notes to the names, I'm doing that afterward. Okay. Timer set? Here I go.

1. Janet Lambert - because you CAN come from a place where nothing ever happens and still write books.
2. All Wranglers - because they are all so very good and because I feel so lucky that they are my friends.
3. Louisa May Alcott - because she's Louisa May Alcott.
4. Nora Roberts - because she's Nora Roberts.
5. Janet Daily - because she was the first American voice I remember reading in romance.
6. Kathleen Gilles Seidel - because if I could choose only one favorite writer, she is it.
7. Emilie Loring - because when I finished reading my stack of books from the library, I read Mom's and they were always Loring's. They were full of glamour and morality and HEA. I loved them.
8. Gene Stratton Porter - because she has a gift with setting I have yet to see equalled.
9. All the writers who wrote the Trixie Belden series - because they made a couple of years of adolescence nearly bearable.
10. Jenni Licata - because she wrote the letter that took me from a hobby writer to a career one.
11. Cheryl Reavis - because her voice is like quilters' cotton, rich and beautiful and warm and comfortable.
12. Pamela Morsi - because she wrote Courting Miss Hattie.
13. LaVyrle Spencer - because years after her retirement, her voice still resonates.
14. Muriel Jensen - because she told me not to give up and I believed her.
15. Betty Neels - because she defines the term "comfort read."

Share your lists with us and then go on and have a great week--and while you're at it, read a good book.

Liz

Comments

  1. Loved reading my mom's Trixie Beldon books!!

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    1. They really hold up, don't they? I haven't read one in years, but now I'm tempted.

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  2. I did this on Facebook the other day, don't have time to repeat now, but you, Kristi and Shawn were all on my list.

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  3. I have some oldies, too, like Emilie Loring, whose work hooked me on romance. Mary Stewart, Dick Francis, P D James, Sue Grafton, Janet Evanovich, Sophie Kinsella, Marian Keyes.

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    1. Ah, Sue Grafton. I have listened to hers on audiobooks!

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  4. Limited to 15?? Can't do it - i try to learn from everyone I read, even if it's something as little as discovering a new word to finally understanding a writing concept. But hey, you've got me thinking...

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    1. That was the reason for the 15-minute limit, I think. I had to shut myself down fast!

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  5. Loved this, Liz. My 15 today not including authors I know--tomorrow I may think of another 15! I have always read a lot--not in any order: (1)ditto on Trixie Belden books, (2) Nancy Drew books, (3) Hardy Boys books, (4) Tom Swift books, (5) Mary Stewart (6) Agatha Christie (7) Dean Koontz (8) Nora Roberts (9) LaVyrle Spencer (10) Sandra Brown (11) Janet Evanovich (12) Gregory Benford (13) Rex Stout (14) Susan Elizabeth Phillips (15) Linda Howard

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    1. I purposefully left out all the nurse books I read, because I'd never have been able to end. Sue Barton has a very comfortable place in my reader's heart.

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  6. Nice list! Mine is: Laura Ingalls Wilder, Walter Farley, Ray Bradbury, Isaac Asimov, Carl Sandberg, Anne McCaffrey, Emily Dickinson, Ursula LeGuin, Frank Herbert, Tolkien, Janet Evanovich, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Sandra Brown, Walt Whitman.

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    1. Oh, great list! And Frank Yerby--how could I have left him off?

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  7. Love to think about this stuff! Okay, so Gene Stratton-Porter, Laura Ingalls Wilder, Rosamund du Jardin, Janet Lambert, Mary Stoltz, Daphne du Maurier, Rachel Field, Agnes Sligh Turnbull, all the Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys authors (which by now, should make my total 15+!), Liz Flaherty (and I'm not schmoozing! Nobody does characters like Liz!), Cheryl Brooks for world-building, Kristin Higgins, Kathleen Gilles Seidel, Lani Diane Rich, Jennifer Crusie . . . I could go on, but I won't.

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  8. Wilson Rawls--who came to my elementary school and told us never to throw away what we wrote--my hubby would probably disagree. S.E.Hinton and Judy Blume got me through my adolescence. Michael Crichton made me realize that you can write what interests you with a little--or a lot--of research. William Goldman because The Princess Bride-'nuff said. Sarah Addison Allen who made me believe in magic--of the realism kind. J.K. Rowling--magic again. My fellow Wranglers because we believe in each other.

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    1. Oh, lovely, Margie. S. E. Hinton and Judy Blume did good things for my kids, too, I think.

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  9. there are so many - a lot of them you mentioned, including all our Wranglers (past and present)! Judy Blume and Beverly Cleary are also on my list, William Goldman...CS Lewis...

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    1. Betty Cavanna was another one who helped me to grow up. Aren't we lucky as readers and writers that our lists are unending?

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  10. I love this question! Thinking chronologically of books and authors that had the most impact: Louisa May Alcott, Laura Ingalls Wilder,C.S. Lewis, Janet Dailey, Violet Winspear, Jim Morrison, Somerset Maugham, T.S. Eliot, Kurt Vonnegut, John Barth,Henry James, Thoreau,Charlotte Bronte, Margaret Atwood, Louise Erdrich

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