What’s your non-exhaustive list? Here’s mine.  Permit me to add to it later:

G.K. Chesterton |Inspired by his unapologetic apologetics; touched by his romantic and sweeping faith, thrilled by his unadulterated humor and the skill with which he turns an argument on a dime.

Marilynne Robinson | If I could reach into someone’s guts with a story like she did me through Gilead, to churn and hurtle the inner man with such emotional resonance, I could die a happy writer.

William Gibson (the playwright, although what I’ve read of the cyberpunk novelist of the same name I admire) | The moments of revelation he earns, through surprise, in a single line in those plays of his I’ve seen or read depress and school me as a writer.

Annie Dillard | I wish she wrote more, which is both a stupid thing to say and a compliment.  Perhaps she takes to heart the advice of another writer I admire and wish wrote more,

Harper Lee | who said, “I’d rather be silent than be a fool.”  Perhaps the literary world is just better for what they have and have not written.

Anne Carson | Have you read what she does with words?  Over my head with delight.

Charles Dickens | Have you noticed that thus far all the writing men I’ve mentioned are no longer living?  Foreboding.  I’m amazed that he wrote such staggering plots, masterpieces like A Tale of Two Cities, episodically.  That means he wrote the story as it was being serialized!  Don’t act like you’re not impressed.

G. Campbell Morgan | If you read one of his sermons, especially during his time at the Westminster Pulpit, you will know why.  He knew how to till the earth and plant a pregnant seed.

Hey.  Here are two writing men that are alive:

Bill Watterson | Yes. The man of Calvin and Hobbes fame.  Because he is intelligent and hilarious and because he said this: “It’s always better to leave the party early.”

Paul Haggis | Bringing story, actual story, to cinematic audiences.

Oh, here’s a third:

Michael Ondaatje | Gee, Andrew, who doesn’t want to write like a Booker Prize-winning author’s whose work is translated into Academy Award winning films?  Look past the accolades, and read his poetic, visceral work so grounded in the senses.

Okay, I actually have to curb this list and go and write for awhile myself.  But a quick more few:

Paul L. Maier | What I’ve read of his historical fiction captivated and intrigued.

John Donne | (I told you this was in no particular order). Oh to write such surprising and perplexing metaphysical conceits!

Peggy Noonan and Ann Coulter | Because paradox means, certainly, that things –lists included– don’t go feeble at the end.  I admire the thoughtfulness and brazen conviction; the awe and the shock; the tenderness and the sharp edge. Punches that aren’t pulled though they both do not pull punches differently.  Herbal tea and the gin.

There are more, and there are lesser writers too.  But away I go to write, inspired.

© 2010 andrew kooman