Authorial encounters...

When I was a child, I used to fantasise that one day my favourite author, Enid Blyton (The Famous Five! The Secret Seven! The Faraway Tree!) would choose to come to visit our Public Library in the South African coastal city of Port Elizabeth, where I spent some of my early years. After all, the Public Library was an impressive building with a larger-than-life statue of Queen Victoria outside. The stature showed Victoria in an imperial pose, sitting on her throne and clasping her orb and sceptre. Surely that would make Blyton feel at home?

But she never came even although I was sure that I must have been her most ardent reader in the world. I used to get through 6 books a week, and there always had to be an Enid Blyton among them. These days, when I do signings of my own books, I'm always taken back to those times when I longed to meet the author of my dreams - and I always recall the chastening fact that Blyton sold over 600 million books worldwide! Nowadays, the abundance of literary festivals world-wide means there is much greater chance of catching one's favourite author in the flesh.

Sadly, I will only encounter Enid Blyton in the great here-after, but of the living authors I'd love to meet there are two that stand out: Barbara Kingsolver and Margaret Atwood. I have devoured their books over the years and they have been an inspiration to me in my own writing.

And... it would have been rather delightful, don't you think, to raise a glass with Ernest Hemingway or look in on Charles Dickens while he was creating Scrooge?

Whom would you most like to meet?