This appears to have been invented by Sharon Lee, here.
Apparently the traditional observance is to blog thanks to various authors.
I’d like to thank Doc Smith and Robert A. Heinlein, for teaching me that the government isn’t necessarily my friend.
I’d like to thank J.R.R. Tolkien for showing me some significantly alien cultures.
I’d like to thank Dorothy Sayers and Lois McMaster Bujold for giving me some positive mature views of romance.
I’d like to thank John M. Ford and Jo Walton for showing me that poetry as a category wasn’t actually inherently boring after all.
I’d like to thank Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, and Patrick O’Brian, and W.E.B. Griffin, and David Weber for giving me some understanding of how one works in the middle of a hierarchical command structure, and why one might want to.
I’d like to thank Peter O’Donnell for competent heros who still have complex emotional lives, and who work for their skills.
I’d like to thank a large number of authors who have provided me many hours of thoughtful, immersive entertainment.
And I’d like to thank a number of authors whose involvement in my life is personal in various degrees as well as professional.