[Editor’s note: In celebration of the holidays, we’re spending the next two Tuesdays by counting down the top 12 Flavorwire features of 2012. This post, at #8, was originally published May 11th.] Every writer, no matter how serious, needs to let off a little steam now and then. Those oh-so-important mental health days might be filled with hobbies (from baking to beekeeping) or drinking (every writer’s default hobby), or just plain goofing around with friends. Luckily for us, some of these author’s kookiest, most candid moments have been captured on film, so we can all feel a little closer to our favorite literary heroes. Click through to check out our gallery of refreshingly silly photos of famous writers, and if you’ve seen a photo we haven’t, share the wealth and link to it in the comments!

Susan Sontag in a bear suit, as snapped by Annie Leibovitz. Image via

Marcel Proust playing air guitar on a tennis racket circa 1892. Image via

Neil Gaiman wearing Cthulhu for a hat. Image via

Prentiss Taylor’s 1935 photo of Zora Neale Hurston performing the crow dance. Courtesy of Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library

John Bryson’s 1959 pic of Ernest Hemingway high kicking a beer can. Image via

Hunter S. Thompson (and John Cusack and Johnny Depp) hitting the town with a blow-up doll. Image via

Colette in a cat costume, circa 1912.

Ron Galella’s 1978 photo of Truman Capote asleep at Studio 54.

Eudora Welty watering her garden from a lawn chair. Image via

Tom Wolfe and Kurt Vonnegut playing lifeguards. Image via

Vladimir Nabokov hunting down butterflies in Ithaca, New York in 1958. Photo by Carl Mydans, from the Life Photo Archive

Edward Gorey and his gigantic teddy bear. Image via

Screenwriter Dalton Trumbo writing in the bath. Image via

Mark Twain taking his billiards game very, very seriously. Image via

One of Maya Angelou’s many visits to Sesame Street. Image via