Question: Are authors celebrities?

I have recently been lucky enough to win a few book giveaways from various blogs. And, as a result, a couple of authors have emailed me to settle the details of mailing addresses, etc. And I have to say, I'm a little starstruck. Apparently, I'm acting as if I were emailed by "freakin' Brad Pitt." (Which is clearly an exaggeration, because if Brad Pitt were emailing me, I would be working on becoming single... hehe) Honestly, even though I know it's not like I'm friends with these authors just because we've enchanged one email, I get pretty excited about the idea of talking to them. I have a lot of admiration for anyone with the dedication to finish an entire book, and this is increased exponentially when I like their work. So my questions are: Do you feel the same way? Do you think of authors as celebs? Which living author's name would you be most excited to see in the "From" field of your inbox?

A related topic- do authors like to hear from you if you read their book? Or is it more annoying than enjoyable? Do they even look at letters and emails from fans? If any of you out there are authors, I'm especially interested to hear your thoughts.