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Which writer would you choose as a pal?

jaybe

jaybe

Member
Which famous writer (living or dead) would you like to know, and how ie. as a friend, neighbour, confidente or other?

What would you talk about? How would you try to help them? What would they bring into your life?
 
I would like to meet most writer i like,but i think i would be to impressed by most of them,feel stupid,stammer,and end up frustrated(stairway policy).Maybe as a neighbourg so i can get use to it,I 'll pick Donald Westlake,must be a funny old guy.In long train trip Paul Theroux,for the travel stories.
 
I think David Sedaris would be a cool neighbor.

Anthony Bourdain would be a good drinking buddy.
 
They're all dead :( Though thats to be expected really, with the proportion of dead to alive writers...

But anyway, JM Barrie! I'd love to meet him, or at least to get to know him. He is the sort of writer whose personality seems to shine through every bit of his writings, making it all very personal, as opposed to say, Mary Shelley, who I don't have the least inclination to meet.

Also Sartre, who I'd give anything to have coffee with.
 
Jimmy Buffett, and if he's not available, then Robert R McCammon


Oh, why Buffett ? Because he's a superb storyteller, really laid back, he flies around very pretty islands in his own plances and he's a legend! I could probably help him out on any offshore fishing trip as I am a very good angler and can get most 50 or so pound fish to the boat. After that it's up to the gaffer.

Not sure about helping McCammon out much, but sure do admire his brilliant imagination and expert writing skills. He's a fellow Southerner too, and well, Southerners can pretty much talk each other to death, so no worries there!
 
Very personal preference, but I would go for:

William Bennett - a local historian and expert on the Pendle Witches who taught me how to play chess when I was a kid. Now sadly passed away.

p.s. it wasn't easy being a local historian in East Lancashire where I grew up - basically nothing noteworth has ever happened (witches apart)!
 
Charlotte Bronte - or E. B. White

Can't imagine either as a "pal" but I would love to meet them, hear them talk. Good writers and people of substance, with interesting experiences in life: Bronte on the moors and in that school in Brussels, White with his farm on the Maine coast.
 
PipPirrip, have you read his Pendle Witches book? I've been looking for a good one for a while. Thought I'd read up on local history, it's rather shocking how little I know after 18 years living here...
 
Dan brown,as a neighbourg with Bukowsky been a "pal" charing the house.:D
it'd put some spyce in my life,not permanently though!
 
I was thinking I'd choose Oscar Wilde, and save him from Bosie and his Dad. But that would mean I'd have to be an extremely good looking young pufta with very high connections. So the same thing would probably happen.

I'll choose Anon instead. He/she wrote such a variety of stuff over an incredibly long life. Yet nothing is known about them. I could write their biography and we would both be remembered.;)
 
Niphredil said:
PipPirrip, have you read his Pendle Witches book? I've been looking for a good one for a while. Thought I'd read up on local history, it's rather shocking how little I know after 18 years living here...
Click to expand...

Hi,

I read it a long time ago (oh I managed to get his first name wrong - it's Walter not William). The only thing he published on the witches was a little 32 page booklet that is sold as the usual tourist fare. It (and his histories of Burnley and "Nelson & Marsden") are not lightweight - His style was very much that of a 50's academian. He was a better speaker than writer.
 
Bukowski - We'd get drunk then naked. He's ugly as all hell but in his books seems like a fun guy as long as I dont throw stuff at him.
 
What a fascinating idea.

I would choose Bill Bryson. He's funny and a fellow lover of languages. Of course, it could change by tomorrow.
 
Twain for political discussions. Alexie for storytelling. Palahniuk for drinking Mai Tais at The Alibi.
 
I'm not sure as a "pal", but there are plenty I'd want to meet and talk to.

I still live in the hope of being able to meet Günter Grass and have a sort of plan to head out to Lübek for a pilgrimage to the house where the Mann family lived. Grass apparently lives close by.

In terms of deceased writers, then Thomas Mann tops my personal list, although I'd also add Shakespeare, Oscar Wilde and Arthur Miller.
 
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