Ever wish you could meet favorite authors?

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I'm wondering if any other readers here the way I do... when you read certain authors, do you ever wish that you knew them personally? I often think that if someone can write something that is so moving or relevant to me, they must have characteristics I would find interesting and likeable, and perhaps they would understand me in some way. I feel like if I just had a chance to talk to them, we would surely be good friends and "kindred spirits" as people say. This is probably daft and wouldn't be true in most cases, but my "faith" has been bolstered by the fact that I got to have a video chat with Ursula K. LeGuin last year and she was a wonderful old lady, and quite hilarious.

I have always wished I could meet Tolkien and W. B. Yeats for this reason; among more modern authors, I really wish I could meet David Mitchell (the author of Cloud Atlas and other such books, not the comedian, although I like him as well.) Anyone else have authors they wish they knew, living or dead?

You spoke to Ursula K. LeGuin? That's pretty impressive!

I would have liked to have met and spoken to J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis and Diana Wynne Jones when they were still alive. I'd still like to meet Stephen King and Terry Pratchett one day and I've met and spoken to Neil Gaiman at an event in Manchester six years ago. I have some questions about American Gods that I'd still like to ask Neil Gaiman but I'm going to see him at the Edinburgh Book Festival soon so maybe I'll get the chance then.

Yes, much more than celebs usually.

Yesyesyes!
Tolkien, C. S Lewis, Dean Koontz, R A Salvatore, Georgette Heyer, Agatha Christie, Louis L'Amour, Lewis Carroll, Beatrix Potter, Fuminori Nakamura, Kipling, and so many more! I'd love to meet them all and just talk to them, pick their brains, find out what they thought of their own books. And because it would just be so fun!

James Joyce
Virginia Woolf
Sylvia Plath

Though I'm afraid they're all rather decomposed now.

I met Louis Grizzard once on a train.

Absolutely! My fave writers must be interesting and intelligent people to write as well as they do, so I'd like to meet and talk to them in person. Ursula Le Guin, William Gibson, Philip Pullman, Haruki Murakami and China Mieville strike me as 'thoughtful' people who'd have interesting things to say and are on my wishlist of 'people I'd like to have a pint with'. I've seen some cool video interviews with them and thought, "I'd like a conversation rather than just an autograph." If their writing strikes a chord with me they may well be on a similar wavelength on a lot of other topics too, right?

I'd actually place my favourite writers above musicians and film directors on that list, with a few exceptions. It seems like a perfectly understandable feeling from my point of view!

I actually met one of my fav authors a few weeks ago by suprise. I was in the artists alley at a convention i get talking with one of the tenders behind the table at the comic one of my fav online writers KrazyKrow writes. so I buy one of the goods at the table for taking her time with one of my long talks. and she says "oh you most likely want is signed as well." she signs my book and I was over the moon with enthusiasm.

That made that entire weekend enjoyable right there. I hope to meet some of my other favs someday though.

I wish I could but i would not know what to say/do/etc.? 0.o I think i would panic or talk too much and if i ever go tot meet them I wish I would not scare them away too soon before I can ask stuff