15 Writers

A popular trend among writers on Facebook is to list fifteen influences.

Here are mine:

1. Oscar Wilde - for his truthful, agile wit
2. James Michener - for his humanity, love of travel and cultural understanding
3. Edward Rutherford - for his genius in merging history and storytelling
4. Alexandre Dumas - for creating fine swordsmen and noble causes
5. Baroness Orczy - for the Scarlett Pimpernel and really, for setting in motion dual-identity characters such as Zorro and Batman
6. Antoine de Saint-Exupéry - for the Little Prince, his insight and humanity
7. Fyodor Dostoyevsky - for his grasp of human psychology, his darkness and eloquent expression
8. Pierre Choderlos de Laclos - for his diabolical wit and his understanding of human games
9. Hans Christian Andersen - for his imagination, for the Little Mermaid
10. The Brothers Grimm - for their imagination and for bringing horror to Fairy Tales
11. Anne Rice - for scaring the hell out of me with the Mayfair Witches and for her sensual, opulent style. For creating the coolest organisation ever written about: The Talamasca. The true lady of supernatural fiction.
12. William Shakespeare - for his wit, depth and his unsurpassed facility for the English language
13. Charles Perrault - for his imagination
14. David Morrell - for creating characters and plots that have fascinated me
15. Robert E. Howard - for creating Red Sonja and for impregnating my childhood with Sword and Sorcery