What classes should I take in college if I want to be an author?

Eris, keep in mind that although there will likely be colleges near you that offer courses in English, Creative Writing, and the like, none of them will result in you having the job of "author" at the end of it (unless you are looking to work for a newspaper, journal, magazine, or similar).

My advice: start writing now. Part of getting better at the craft is working the craft, so if you have a genre or area of focus you're already passionate about, start creating. Also, you may well need a portfolio of work to get into some of the colleges with programs that interest you. Much of what you do now you may never end up using, but you will also establish the discipline of sitting down to write--even when the creative juices feel absent.

And while he is often dismissed due to the genre he works in and the perceived "simplicity" of his style, I would also highly recommend Stephen King's 'On Writing.' It is part auto-biography and part nuts & bolts of the craft, but I found both parts equally illuminating.

If you want to be a writer, the first thing you need is language skills and imagination (depending on what you want to write about, novels, science fiction, science, biographies, or educational)

Take Language arts, so that you can write effectively.

If you want to write fiction: go to Community College for a year and learn the basic mechanics of writing.
After the first year, drop out and take that money and go to Europe. Write every single day and explore life. No one needs another dork with an MFA trying to be the next Faulkner.

It's about living and capturing that on the page, not trying to craft a bunch of sentences together for the sake of writing some amazing trash.

I suggest taking as many English classes as you can, especially writing courses. Look for a college that has a Writing Arts program (or something similar). Those programs typically gear their courses to helping you become a good writer (and therefore, author).

This is all great advice, but I would like to add that most often writers write based on their experience, both in fiction and non-fiction, even in blogs and journalistic type positions. You do need great writing skills and a strong understanding of sentence structure and mechanics type things, but you also need a creative mind and an adventurous spirit and experiences that fuel your mind. Make sure you don't get lost in the books and the grammar, but get out there and do things, travel, talk to people and the like and then you'll have things to write about!

Hi, Eris: I'm going to assume that you want to be a fiction writer, yes? If that is the case there are a bunch of things to do and then obvious classes you should take. Take classes that are writing intensive . . . in other words, courses that require you to write a lot. So, creative writing classes are a good start. Then classes that require a lot of reading . . . especially the kind of reading that matches the kind of writing you'd like to do. Of course, you don't need to take classes to do a lot of reading. I'm also going to assume that you always have a book that you're reading that is not a part of your classwork. And, along those lines, you should always be writing something . . . at least keeping a journal and a notebook with story ideas. Maybe keep an audio file going on your smartphone of ideas that occur to you as you go through the day. There's a book entitled The Writer's Digest which covers the ins and outs of being a professional writer. It's not too early to be learning about the business side of being a writer and that's what Writer's Digest is all about. However, all this said, just do whatever you can to keep the creative juices flowing . . . if you want to be a writer, write something new every day. Find someone or some "ones" with whom to share your writing. Find a writer's workshop at your local community center. Once you start meeting other writers, sharing ideas, you'll be inspired to keep going and, voila, you'll be a writer! Best of luck, keep writing and I hope to see you in print!

Any English or literature classes are good to take because then you have a foundation of writing and literary work. They will also help you figure out your writing style and what you are most comfortable writing about.