I had written him a fan letter as a kid. When he came to town to do a reading, I met him and his wife remembered who I was from my letter.
The next day I knew they were leaving Seattle, so my mom got me out of school (I was in 6th grade) for the day so we could go to the airport to try to find them. We didn’t know what airline or even what time they were leaving. It was crazy to think we would ever find them.
We hopped on the escalator from the parking garage into the airport itself and as we stepped off it, we walked right between him and his wife!! I had a small present for him, a little figurine of a mousey creature. He told me he would write me into one of his books.
At the time (12 years ago!) I was all caught up with all his books in the Redwall series, now I am only 50% done!! I need to keep reading to see if he ever wrote me in as the hare maiden character he promised he would.
He was a really splendidly pleasant person, both he and his wife.