E is for Dave Eggers? I have not read enough Emerson, Steve Erickson, Ralph Ellison, and nothing by Stanley Elkin or Louise Erdrich.

D is for Don Delillo. Sure there’s Samuel Delany, and there’s Mark Z. Danielewski. But I keep gravitating towards Delillo’s early novels.

C should be for Robert Creeley. Favorite poet, rhythm-wise. Could be for the writings of John Cage as well.

B is for William S Burroughs. His deadpan prose. His attitude towards language. The experimentation. Barth, Barthelme, Brautigan come after.

A is for Paul Auster. His early books. Because at the time I loved them. More so than Abish, Adler, Antrim. And I have not read Henry Adams.

A highly subjective ABC of American literature. In 27 tweets. These are some of the writers who matter for me, and to whose books I return.

Just dug up a bit of text I made a couple of months ago. Something I’d been thinking of doing for a long time. Simple idea: an ABC of American literature, mentioning my favorite writers in bits of 140 characters max – so it’ll fit a tweet. One tweet per letter of the alphabet.

Was waiting for the right moment to ‘tweet’ them.

I don’t feel like tweeting them. Just imagine that someone picks up on it, begins an argument, or a quarrel, and forces me to react… I have presently no time to react, nor do I wish to begin an argument.

It’s just a highly personal ABC of AmLit. (Sure, there are some value judgements ‘hidden’ in the list).