I heard about this Publisher's Weekly poll for who is the greatest American author from Kimberly. Naturally, this is a silly question. It's Edgar Allan Poe. More interesting: the results of the poll show that "Other" is winning by more than 2% over Mark Twain, and 15% more than Edgar Allan Poe (seriously, people?). In fact, nearly 1/4th of poll respondents decided to write in their choices for the greatest American author. This got me thinking, who are these write-in choices for? The possibilities are endless. For example:
- Stephenie Meyer-This is particularly likely if a bunch of teenage girls saw the poll (incidentally, I actually do think there's a case to be made that Meyer is the most influential author of the last decade).
- EL James-I would seriously laff my arse off if she won this poll. The fact that she's not American would just make it more perfect.
- James Patterson-I've heard this guy is pretty popular.
- A bunch of authors saw the poll and voted for themselves-I'm looking at you, Jeffrey Eugenides. Ha! Just kidding.
- Stephen King-King has that rare combo of popular appeal AND critical rep. I would not be at all shocked if he got in a lot of votes.
- Dan Brown-Kind of outdated as the author du jour, but you never know, he could still get some votes in.
- Nora Roberts-Admittedly not very likely, since romance readers tend to avoid polls like this (I speak as someone who reads romance), but she definitely deserves some write-in votes. I mean, the woman has her own section in the bookstore.
Who did you vote for in the poll? Edgar Allan Poe, right?
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