1. J. K. Rowling

Top of my list of authors I’d love to have a conversation with has to be Joanne Rowling. This incredible woman, who wrote the first Harry Potter book as a single mother living on welfare benefits, became the first billionaire author in 2012. I’d love a peek inside the mind that got a whole generation obsessed with reading and created a story that’s been enjoyed my millions of people all over the world.

2. Christina Rossetti

I have a book of Rossetti’s complete poems, and it’s 900 pages long, and then you consider all of the prose that she wrote too! A truly prolific writer, Rossetti intrigues me on many different levels, but especially with her desire to find love and become a mother set in direct conflict with her religious beliefs, being unable to find a man godly enough to give herself to.

3. Philip Pullman

Philip Pullman is one of the authors I’d love to have a conversation with because he wrote one of the most contentious and fascinating series of books of the twentieth century. You know a book is controversial in this day and age when passages are censored and the books are banned by many schools and religious institutions all over the world, including in the United States.

4. J. R. R. Tolkien

Tolkien didn’t just write one of the best stories ever told, he also created multiple new languages and whole new worlds out of his own imagination. I’d really love to talk to him about the inspiration for his Middle Earth novels and stories (including The Lord of the Rings), and find out what he thinks about the various film and even musical adaptations that have been made.

5. George Orwell

Nineteen Eighty-Four easily makes it onto my list of favorite books of all time, and I’d love to speak to the man whose dark imagination and cultural and political skepticism were behind such a novel. The novel is actually a scarily accurate prediction of modern life in many ways, which is perhaps why so many of his neologisms have since entered the English language. I also enjoyed Animal Farm and his less well-known but thoroughly enjoyable first book, Down and Out in Paris and London.

6. Jonathan Swift

The oldest writer to make the list, Jonathan Swift would be well worth talking to because of his brilliant satirical writing. He’s best known for Gulliver’s Travels, one of my favorite books of all time, but also wrote some great satirical essays. Who wouldn’t want to meet a man who suggested (not seriously, of course) that the poor sell their children for the rich to eat?

7. Oscar Wilde

One of the writers I’d love to have a conversation with definitely has to be Oscar Wilde. The Importance of Being Earnest had me in stitches both when reading and watching, The Picture of Dorian Gray is just fascinating, and I’d love to find out more about his imprisonment and exile.

So there you have it: the authors I’d most like to talk to. Some are still alive, most are dead, but all are talented geniuses. If you could have a conversation with any author, who would it be?