作家、作者、著者、筆者

I thought I'd have a look at WWWJDIC to check how these terms were
defined and noticed they're pretty much all defined as "writer" or
"author". I'm not quite sure if my understanding of the terms are
correct, but as per my understanding it's something like:

作家 is a professional author
作者 is the writer of the particular novel in question
著者 is the writer of a non-fiction book
筆者 is the writer of an article

What I'm wondering is:

作家 - Is this only referring to professional fiction authors? Or
primarily of fiction? Or does it not matter?
著者 - Does this term have to refer to the writer of a particular book,
or can you say 彼は著者です to say that he is a non-fiction writer?
筆者 - Does the article have to be non-fiction? Would the writer of a
particular fictional short story be a 筆者 as well？




Also, on an unrelated note, I saw this sentence on a Japanese learning
website somewhere:

食べ物がおいしかったと部屋がすごくきれいでした。

Does this sentence actually make sense? I've always thought that と
can't be used to join sentences. If it doesn't work, would the correct
sentence be 食べ物がおいしくて部屋がすごくきれいでした? And, if it does work, could I have
a couple more examples of that sentence structure to get the hang of
it?

いつもお世話になっています　＾－＾

Lara

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Erosion
    ... speculative fiction writing, science fiction or fantasy or any other ... Publishers tend to pick up on you if you've been able to tell ... the marketing writer in me. ...
    (rec.arts.sf.composition)
  • Re: True crime in crime fiction?
    ... It would have been easy enough to think of a crime like that; ... The writer says the story isn't fiction because it ... follows a real-life event too closely. ...
    (rec.arts.mystery)
  • Re: Erosion
    ... promotion. ... speculative fiction writing, science fiction or fantasy or any other ... Publishers tend to pick up on you if you've been able to tell ... the marketing writer in me. ...
    (rec.arts.sf.composition)
  • Re: Paul Park,
    ... I meant "not a writer of fiction", ... fiction who disliked it, ... The only Goodkind I've read was flat-out ugly ... (Else why wouldn't S&M Goodkind fans be reading say Anne Rice, ...
    (rec.arts.sf.written)
  • Re: The Campbells of Yesteryear: 1978-80 (long)
    ... non-genre scholars today", and were active 100 years ago (though not ... current genres of science fiction, fantasy, or horror", which is silly. ... In that list, contrary to your belief, Hodgson and Machen are barely ... Kipling -- short story writer and poet ...
    (rec.arts.sf.written)