Fifteen authors

The Rules: Don't take too long to think about it. Fifteen authors (poets included) who've influenced you and that will always stick with you. List the first 15 you can recall in no more than 15 minutes. Let me know if you do this, because I'm interested in seeing what authors my friends choose....

Robert Heinlein
JRR Tolkein
Isaac Asimov
Richard Feynman
William Gibson
John Crowley
RA Wilson
Daniel Goleman
Stuart Brand
Richard Bach
Edmund Husserl
Jean-Paul Sartre
Edgar Allen Poe
Christopher Alexander
Lewis H. Lapham

I had a hard time separating people who influenced me by their writing from people who influenced me in other ways; I've been privileged to meet many of the authors I admire.

I am ashamed that there are no women on this list. The one who came closest was Megan Lindholm of all people. There are a number of women writers whose work I like but I was looking for influence, not like; thus, Neil Gaiman and Italo Calvino aren't on the list either. Those women who write and who have been the most influential on me have influenced me personally much more than through their writings. I also got exposed to non-Anglo writing much later in life; I imagine if I had the chance I would have been influenced by them as well. Note to self - taunt children with interesting non-English literature.

Stopping at 15 meant I cut off some names I could easily have listed. Stuart Card, Kevin Lynch, Heidegger and Kant, and poets such as e e cummings and T.S. Elliot all were cut more or less arbitrarily. Likewise for SF/F fantasy authors such as Ted Sturgeon and Fritz Leiber, not to mention Doyle, Verne, and Mary Shelley. That, I suppose, is the joy and pain of doing this under a time limit rather than reflecting on choices longer.

Fifteen authors

The Rules: Don't take too long to think about it. Fifteen authors (poets included) who've influenced you and that will always stick with you. List the first 15 you can recall in no more than 15 minutes. Let me know if you do this, because I'm interested in seeing what authors my friends choose....

Robert Heinlein
JRR Tolkein
Isaac Asimov
Richard Feynman
William Gibson
John Crowley
RA Wilson
Daniel Goleman
Stuart Brand
Richard Bach
Edmund Husserl
Jean-Paul Sartre
Edgar Allen Poe
Christopher Alexander
Lewis H. Lapham

I had a hard time separating people who influenced me by their writing from people who influenced me in other ways; I've been privileged to meet many of the authors I admire.

I am ashamed that there are no women on this list. The one who came closest was Megan Lindholm of all people. There are a number of women writers whose work I like but I was looking for influence, not like; thus, Neil Gaiman and Italo Calvino aren't on the list either. Those women who write and who have been the most influential on me have influenced me personally much more than through their writings. I also got exposed to non-Anglo writing much later in life; I imagine if I had the chance I would have been influenced by them as well. Note to self - taunt children with interesting non-English literature.

Stopping at 15 meant I cut off some names I could easily have listed. Stuart Card, Kevin Lynch, Heidegger and Kant, and poets such as e e cummings and T.S. Elliot all were cut more or less arbitrarily. Likewise for SF/F fantasy authors such as Ted Sturgeon and Fritz Leiber, not to mention Doyle, Verne, and Mary Shelley. That, I suppose, is the joy and pain of doing this under a time limit rather than reflecting on choices longer.