Let's get the ball rolling. Who are your favorite authors?

[ChazInAz]

45. I'm a fossil, I guess.

Before I ran out of things to say, I was a writer. The following were people that I knew and were tremendous influences on me as a person and in my short literary career.
Harlan Ellison (The best and most fearless man I have ever met.)
Fritz Leiber (An old friend and correspondent, whom I still miss bitterly.)
Poul Anderson (We once got loaded together...a scandalous story. St. Louis never recovered.)
Robert Silverberg (My girlfriend and I once spent a whole day with him and his wife. One of the best people ever to sit at a typewriter.)
Cordwainer Bird
J.G. Ballard (As with Bird, I never met the gentlemen...my loss!)
Larry Niven
Isaac Asimov

Odd that so few of these made it into other people's lists.