What 20th Century Author would you have dinner with?

What 20th century author would you have dinner with, if you could choose anyone living or deceased?  For me it would be Ray Bradbury who died last June at the age of 91.  Bradbury had a unique creative genius and a gift for storytelling that sucked you into a story and then lead you to believe the most incredible, surrealistic things.   I suspect that most boys, at some point, have an obsession with Bradbury, mine started in high school and lasted until my mid 30’s.

At dinner I would ask Ray how he imagined stories such as Fahrenheit 451 and the Martian Chronicles.  Although Bradbury’s reputation rested on science fiction and dystopia societies, I like the “down home” books like:   Something Wicked This Way Comes, Dandelion Wine and I Sing the Body Electric.

Bradbury was a self-made writer, didn’t attend college and didn’t attend writer’s conferences or have an MFA.  Bradbury took Faulkner’s advice, “Don’t be a writer.  Be writing.”

Who would you have dinner with?