What Authors Would You Invite To Dinner?

I liked Karen Tae's article, "Which authors would you invite to dinner?" (HERE)

Tae makes the interesting observational that people can be disappointed when they meet the author of their favorite book -- because the author is not the same person who wrote the book; that person has moved one!

Books are like time capsules of a certain stage of a writer's thought process, creative energy and emotional space. Generally, once the story has been told, the author goes on to the next project and by the time the long, painful process of publishing has been endured and the reader gets their hot little hands on a copy, it will have been years since the completion of those early drafts. People can change a lot within the space of months, let alone over two or three or four years.

I never thought about that, but it's certainly true!  King does pretty good reflecting on the person he was when he wrote various books.  Robert Mccammon got frustrated with people only wanting to discuss Swan Song, and at least for a while refused to talk about the novel!  Imagine that -- you could sit in a library and talk with friends or reading groups about the book, but the author did not want to discuss it. It seems King has always been quite willing to talk about his work.

So who would you invite to dinner?  On Tae's list is Stephen King, with a strange notation about Tabitha that I don't quite understand.  (Wouldn't she also count as an author?)  About King, Tae writes:

Who wouldn't want to have Stephen and Tabitha King over for dinner?! He could regale me with horror stories while I drain the spaghetti and stir the sauce. Tabitha would naturally be in charge of dessert. And I could discuss post-apocalyptic fiction with King and when exactly he thinks they might turn the Dark Tower series into movies.

Why is Tabitha "naturally in charge of dessert"?  Is that a reference to a book or an inside joke?  I don't get it.  Ben Stein voice. . . anyone, anyone, anyone. . .

Thinking of dinner with a writer, I ate dinner one night with my wife and her family at the Old Spaghetti Factory.  My wife excitedly told everyone not to bother with spaghetti sauce, but to instead get the mizithira cheese because the menu said Homer lived on it when he wrote the Odyssey.  We followed this direction, and all wished we had some sauce.

MY CHOICES FICTION:

1. Stephen King
2. Charles Dickens
3. Arthur Conan Doyle
4. Ray Bradbury
5. Ken Follett

And to each  meal, I would invite Ed Wood to be my sidekick to keep the conversation flowing.  (Or Woody Allen) 

MY CHOICES NonFICTION:

1. Rick Warren (Pirpose Driven Life)
2. Gary Thomas (Sacred marriage)
3. Aaron Eby (Boundary Stones)
4. Errol Morris (A Wilderness Of Error)
5. Carl Sandburg (Lincoln series)

YOUR TURN!