Hunter S. Thompson's literary heroes may see his ashes explode 300 feet into the summer sky this weekend.

Anita Thompson spent part of Thursday printing black-and-white photos of eight writers, all deceased, her former husband most admired.

Samuel Coleridge. Joseph Conrad. William Faulkner. F. Scott Fitzgerald. Ernest Hemingway. Henry Miller. John Steinbeck. Mark Twain.

Anita Thompson hopes to hang the prints in a massive bar being constructed on the 42-acre Thompson property as part of the send-off that will see Hunter Thompson's ashes blasted from a 153-foot "fist cannon" Saturday night.

"The snow leopards," Anita Thompson said of the writers, referring to her former husband's expression that successful persons, no matter their career, were all similar in some way; they were all "snow leopards."

Hunter Thompson himself has been painted as a literary snow leopard, but also a cartoon character, and a gonzo writer — the latter because of his unique mix of drugs, guns and words. But friends and family are using Saturday's event, although it is closed to the public, as a time to reinforce the idea that Thompson was, above all, about good writing.

Hunter Thompson killed himself with a gun blast to the head at his home on Feb. 20.

As Anita Thompson padded around the kitchen Thursday afternoon — the same kitchen Hunter Thompson famously worked out of — she set on the counter the 11-inch-by-14-inch prints that she expects to put in gold frames. The sepialike photos show the authors in formal dress, most gazing seriously at the camera.

Hunter Thompson had a favorite quote, and learned something different from each author, Anita Thompson explained.

For a quote from Coleridge, Anita Thompson finds the card printed up for Hunter Thompson's March 5 commemoration which cites the last stanza of Kubla Khan: "Weave a circle round him thrice, and close your eyes with holy dread, for he on honey-dew hath fed, and drunk the milk of Paradise."

Conrad's classic Heart of Darkness was the last book Anita and Hunter Thompson read together. The preface to another Conrad book was a standout for Hunter Thompson, and carries this quote: "Art is long and life is short, and success is very far off."

For Faulkner, Anita Thompson noted that he and Hunter Thompson both were Southerners.

When Hunter Thompson was alive, a kitchen pastime was having guests read out loud from books that he wrote. Anita Thompson took up that spirit Thursday afternoon as she read from Fitzgerald, who Hunter Thompson admired for the economy of his writing, and used that as a model for his most famous book, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, said Anita Thompson.

"There was music from my neighbor's house through the summer nights," goes Chapter III of The Great Gatsby. "In his blue gardens men and girls came and went like moths among the whisperings and the champagne and the stars."

Hunter Thompson so admired Hemingway, he stole the elk horns from the writer's Idaho home after Hemingway's death as a way of trying to capture his legacy. As she looks on, the photo Anita Thompson is using of Hemingway shows the bearded author in a plaid sportcoat, tie and V-neck sweater.

Twain, Anita Thompson said, was a favorite among favorites for Hunter Thompson. She noted that early in his career Twain was akin to an outlaw writer — how Thompson referred to himself — because of Twain's groundbreaking style.

In the search for the right word, Hunter Thompson found this quote from Twain: "The difference between the right word and the nearly right word is the difference between lightning and lightning bug."

Come Saturday, one can only wonder at the right words those eight authors would have chosen to describe the blast-off.