––Ever get a chance to meet/communicate with your hero?

Cooper: At a Jewish Book Council event in Washington D.C. a couple years back, I did meet Alan Alda's wife Arlene, who writes children's books and was there, like me, pitching her book and her services as a speaker to Jewish book fairs across the country. I introduced myself and briefly considered telling her how much I love her husband and his politics and his creativity and also that I'd recently read and enjoyed his memoir Never Have Your Dog Stuffed and Other Things I've Learned, and how I think it was really cool that he came out so publicly in favor of the ERA way back when, even though he took so much shit for it. But in the end I decided simply to shake her hand and look her directly in the eye and try to wordlessly communicate my respect for her and her husband in a more dignified (well, sane), manner.

Davis: Once, I saw a woman on the subway who looked so much like her. Actually, I saw her twice, and stared and stared. I know Linda Carter wouldn’t ride the subway. No, no contact. I don’t even think I wrote her any fan mail. I did, however, watch a TV movie with her and Loni Anderson, where they both were spies or something, sometime in the late 80s. Now that’s loyalty.

Litman: At the end of the summer, Samantha went home. She changed her mind about being a veterinary doctor and decided to become an actress instead. It proved to be a fateful decision. A couple years later she was killed in a small-plane crash, while returning from filming some silly TV show. Some people in Russia said it was CIA’s work. Far-fetched? Probably. I suppose I could’ve written her a letter in those two or three years between her visit and her death. But I was never the type to write fan letters. Besides, what could I have written back then? I am a schoolgirl. I am ten. I have a big family.

Schappell: No. Though I did find out a few years ago that a friend of mine’s sister had worked for her until she died. She was her companion, she ran errands for her, and took her for drives. She said Kate really loved tooling around in her sister’s beat up little Toyota, and that she kept her wits, sense of humor and independence until the end.

Ward: Not yet! My obsession with Mandela grows. I went to Cape Town last year to research my novel set in South Africa, and asked everyone I could find what they thought of him. I've watched dozens of documentaries about him and read countless books. All ironic detachment aside, I think he is an inspiration. I cannot imagine an American leader who even compares.