Here's a question we owe to one of our readers from the Intrigue Authors blog.
If you could meet any author--living or dead--who would it be and why?

Carol Ericson: I would have liked to meet gothic romance author, Victoria Holt, who passed away in 1993 while at sea between Greece and Egypt.  Victoria Holt is the author who inspired me to write romance, and especially romantic suspense novels.  The first Holt book I read was The Secret Woman, and I was immediately hooked.  I proceeded to check out all of her previous books from the library, and then I would impatiently wait for each of her new books to come out.  She blended romance and mystery and excitement and sometimes exotic locales into one terrific page-turning story.  I have re-read her books many times, and I'm in the process of collecting all of her novels in first edition hard back.  She wrote under other names as well, most notably Jean Plaidy and Philippa Carr.  I read her Carr books, an entire series called Daughters of England, much later.  Those books contained more history, and the stories were just as fabulous as her gothic romances.  She remains one of my favorite authors today.

Julie Miller:  I would like to meet Agatha Christie. I've always adored a good mystery--as a kid reading Encyclopedia Brown books, through my Nancy Drew phase, and on to the Intrigues I write and read now. I've been reading Dame Agatha since high school, and have a lifetime goal of eventually reading all of her books and plays. I'd be fascinated to hear how she came up with so many diverse ideas; rich, memorable characters; and unique plots. She's one of the few authors to stump me with a mystery, yet have the outcome be entirely believable. Beyond the writing, though, I'm intrigued by the fact that she was so well-traveled and a dog lover, to boot! I also enjoy traveling and love dogs, so I think we might share a few things in common.

For those of you who've read my books, you also know I love dogs, and try to work them into stories when I can. My October Intrigue, Private S.W.A.T. Takeover, features 3 dogs as supporting characters--Bruiser, Cruiser and Yukon. All 3 are rescue animals, and are based on real dogs I've owned or met. Plus, all 3 play a key role in the third installment of my Precinct: Brotherhood of the Badge miniseries from Intrigue.

Rebecca York: If I could meet any author, living or dead, I'd want to sit down with Jack Williamson, who died recently.  He was one of the greats of science fiction and fantasy--which was what I read when I was a teenager.  He was a tremendous influence on my work.  His book, Darker Than You Think, got me fascinated with werewolves.  In fact, that  book made me want to BE a werewolf, but it wasn't until years later that I wrote my first werewolf, Ross Marshall, in Killing Moon. 

B.J. Daniels: I would love to meet Stephen King. I've read his books, his book on writing is wonderful and I think he is a common man's, or woman's in our case, writer. He struggled to get where he is and yet he doesn't ever seem to put himself on a pedestal. If anything, I think he faces the same things we do when he starts a book.  Now what I would say to him, I have no idea. I guess I'd just like to shake his hand. Reading his books certainly made me want to write. Although I could never write suspense even close to what he does, in my latest book, Montana Royalty, I have a peeping tom who is so twisted and scary that I worried my editor would make me rewrite some of it -- especially the ending. She didn't. :) But I think what I learned from Stephen was to make villains whole people with wants and desires that drive them -- just like us. So thank you, Stephen King!

Dana Marton: Margaret Mitchell. I would try my hardest to talk her into writing more books!!

Mallory Kane: Maybe I should say Benjamin Franklin, or Charlotte Bronte, or even Margaret Mitchell, but the writer I always wanted to meet is Andre Norton. She was an incredibly prolific and lyrical science fiction/fantasy writer. I have over 100 of her books but I never got to meet her before she died in 2005. She wrote a few romance novels as Alice Mary Norton, which are good, but not as deep and memorable as her Andre Norton books. I admire her as a writer and a person, and when I started writing, she was one of my main influences. I would love to have even a smidgen of the talent she had for turning a phrase.   My next book, Solving the Mysterious Stranger, is out in September, 2008. It includes a tiny bit of paranormal, in that a fortune-teller is involved in helping the hero and heroine with their task of saving the world.