Top Ten Writers on Twitter

i originally wrote this in a bout of mania inspired by the old vice shit that people would write and apparently get paid hundreds of dollars to publish. i think there's a lack of navel-gazing and community-promotion in different venues these days - twitter feels very locked into twitter. instead of pitching this stupid thing anywhere, i'm putting it here. on rereading it, i'm working on changing how it's written, so it can feel more earnest, i think.

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As a writer - and for writers - Twitter is a fun medium. Are we past peak writer Twitter? Absolutely - with alt-lit's drug-fueled livetweets and overly-personal confessions long gone, Twitter is turning, slowly but surely, into Facebook Lite, a place where millennials post personality quiz results and complain about their neighbors.

But it's also, for many writers, one of many generic dumping grounds for hashtags and new book announcements, thanks in part to the hundreds of identical articles full of tips for promoting your shitty new eBook, thanks in another part to the writers who are on Twitter begrudgingly, just to engage their loyal fans with non-committal retweets for upcoming book tours and interviews. I think it's just, maybe, like everything else, but still, in that way, bad.

So far, if you base your opinion on what I've written, Twitter is mostly bad.

But Twitter can still be a force for creative good for writers, and I don't just mean in terms of vaguely viral #AmWriting tweets about working on a novel draft. And I'm not talkign about it as a place to make friends and connections, which happens, and which I've done and benefited from, in a person-to-person way. I mean there are still writers - people who write - using the medium to exercise their creativity and voice in the act of tweeting. This writing on, and for, the medium, is a conscious distancing from self-promotion, networking, SEO-optimization, and whatever marketing bullshit people usually associate with being a writer on twitter. I'm talking about "Pure Tweets", the tweet for the tweet's sake, the injection of literary goodness into a never-ending feed. Something something hellworld, doomscrolling, blah blah.

This is a list I've compiled to celebrate - and encourage - this kind of writerly tweeting, and hopefully inspire more people to tweet this. There are many writers on Twitter I love, and even for their tweets, but I'm also narrowing down the field in terms of: consistency, frequency, original content to retweet ratios, and 'all that jazz'. It was a lot of work, so you better enjoy this: a list of some of my favorite writer, or writer-adjacent, tweeters in 2020.
 

10. @weeatherhead

Andrew Weatherhead

@weeatherhead · Apr 23

Feel like my cats are extracting a cat person out of me, like a zip file

Andrew Weatherhead is a poet. You should buy, and read, his jangly, fragmented "book-length poem" $50,000. While for a while I wouldn't have recommended Andrew's tweets due to his emphasis on cataloguing his work out routines, I've since come around to enjoying his tweeting. I think his book coming out got him back into the swing of things. Andrew's tweet strengths lies in his provocative introspection. His tweets are a medium for him to peer into his own mind...

Andrew Weatherhead

@weeatherhead · Apr 6

Keep thinking “Dave ‘Easter’ Eggers”

...and find the inexplicable...

Andrew Weatherhead

@weeatherhead · Apr 22

I keep hoping that Girl Talk will come back and remix my life somehow -- all my poems, my art, make me better or something, beatmatch my bullshit, cure me

...but also, ultimately, sometimes, his tweets deliver a deft punch to the deflating writerly spirit in all of us:

Andrew Weatherhead

@weeatherhead · Apr 21

Reinvigorating my novel by changing the title to “Who Cares”

Follow Andrew and you will see good writer tweets. I think he's consciously tapped into what I'm tapped into, re:good tweets, a kindred spirit in the hunt for, and desire to manufacture, good tweets.

9. @timothysanders

TWS

@timothysanders · Apr 16

ordered a bidet for my ass

Timothy Willis Sanders was around a few years ago in indie lit, with small press (and out of print) books from 2010 and 2014, but he's still around and he's still tweeting and he's still tweeting with a panache for the written word. Like his evocative fiction, often disjointed and strange, TWS's tweets engage me with their turn of phrase and irreverent nature. From observational comedy...

TWS

@timothysanders · Mar 29

my bank emailed me to say that in these tough times they are still committed to me. thank you bank.

To dark, humorous confession...

TWS

@timothysanders · Mar 13

rude of my emotions to make me cry again

To self-aware digs at "being in the writing scene"...

TWS

@timothysanders · Mar 4

so far i’ve met 6,00,000 people at awp & they’re all in the same mfa program

...TWS offers a solid repertoire of writerly tweets. Follow him for a good mix of the personal and the cutting, the sweet and the strange, and read his books for more of the same (sorry for rhyming).

8. @sighpilot

momo @SighPilot · Apr 25

some words/phrases i have repeated in recent personal emails: fuck bubble, modified calvinism, collective sheltering inertia, crisis=opportunity, telegraphed intention, cosmic equations, folly, ranches, psychobabble, collapsed anus, yeah, looping, cardinal, extrapolate, slowdown

Momo doesn't have a book, and he barely has anything in any online lit mags (but what he does have, well *chef's kiss*, as they say). But he's a writer through and through, treating your twitter timeline like his Kerouacquian scroll of paper. And with under 500 followers, he's yet to let his art decay into an ego-feeding engagement frenzy. You should follow him, though, to see if we can make him go insane.

From the classic introspective monologuing:

momo @SighPilot · Apr 15

just thought ‘gimme all the deets’ in shithead brunch voice apropos of nothing immediately discernible while brushing my teeth

to the stupid depressed dad jokes (he's expecting, so it's ok):

momo @SighPilot · Apr 11

a tisket

a tasket

a custom crocodile leather casket

to the punchy short-story-in-a-tweets:

momo @SighPilot · Apr 6

an ongoing, open zoom meeting where participants come to shave their heads in silence

Momo's a welcome addition to anyone looking for good, writerly, tweeterly content. I endorse his tweets.

7. @wownicebuttdude

ava wolf

@wownicebuttdude · Apr 28

roommate said that yesterday her boss overheard me marching up and down the stairs with the cat in my arms yelling "BIG BOY STINKY BOY BIG BOY STINKY BOY"

Ava Wolf doesn't have any books either, because fuck you, we have the internet (unless you count a digital-only 18-page microchap as a book, which you probably should, because it was released by the indelible Ghost City Press). But, speaking of internet, she's a solid tweeter who specializes in self-deprecating introspection about food, clothes, and, hey, even books. The versatility of her subdued humor rips and grips, from dry one-liners...

ava wolf

@wownicebuttdude · Apr 27

some tweets are good. some tweets are bad.  that’s life baby

to her stylish exercises in autofiction...

ava wolf

@wownicebuttdude · Apr 24

very exciting plans this weekend. for instance, i will be wearing a bathrobe, laying down, getting back up, taking a sip of water, laying down, computer, getting back up, wiping something (body? counter?), laying down, opening book, closing book, computer, etc.

to, somehow, actually good content about cats (rare in 2020)...

ava wolf

@wownicebuttdude · Apr 24

people ask how i can tell my cats apart. "both of your cats look the same," they say. ha! fools... one is a beautiful and elegant creature with silken fur, while the other is simply a bunch of ketchup in a ziplock bag with googly eyes

Bold and contemporary, Ava's tweets are that rare type of good tweet written by someone with an unpretentious ability to write well - truly a writer who tweets, not simply a tweeter who writes, or a writer who tweets to promote writing. This is the sunshine quadrant, the intersection of intent and execution that all good writers-on-twitter should target.

6. @miragonz

Mira Gonzalez

@miragonz · Apr 22

the last thought i have before i die is definitely gonna be something insanely stupid

Mira Gonzalez is not a best-kept secret. She's an OG alt-lit tweeter (even though she hates the label, like all good alt-lit writers do) with an out-of-print poetry book on Sorry House, ~30k followers and even 50% of a book of tweets (Selected Tweets, co-authored with Tao Lin, on Tyrant Books). While she's a strong meta-tweeter - consistently dunking with observational commentary with her finger on the timeline's pulse - I recommend following her for the sheer variety of topics she tackles with her self-assured, confident style. Check our her range, from weed thoughts...

Mira Gonzalez

@miragonz · Apr 27

seems like the whole point of golf is to play as little actual golf as possible?

to political commentary...

Mira Gonzalez

@miragonz · Apr 10

oh your candidate is a rapist who can't form a coherent sentence after 3pm? idk, that sounds like a You problem

to provocative fun facts...

Mira Gonzalez

@miragonz · Apr 23

just learned that one-third of all divorce filings in the US include the word "facebook"

...Mira is a must-follow writer who brings a good breadth and engaging relevancy to the feed. You can also mine her accounts (yes, plural) for some classic, hey-day twitter shit, including an account dedicated to her aborted attempt at reading Infinite Jest.

5. @oneloveasshole

one love asshole

@oneloveasshole · Apr 26

was gonna post a pic of my unpublished manuscript printed out but remembered i’m not that kind of asshole.

Steve Anwyll is a Canadian author. His novel, Welfare (Tyrant Books) was one of the best books I read in 2019. While his novel is heartbreaking and raw, and in interviews he's enthusiastic and honest, on Twitter, Steve is a depressed, angry asshole. His lowercase, staccato, and bleak tweets are grounding and refreshingly meditative. From his self-deprecating self-empowerment...

one love asshole

@oneloveasshole · Apr 18

everything i believe in is bullshit and that’s ok.

to his unexpected philosophical treatises...

one love asshole

@oneloveasshole · Apr 22

you frisbee toss an expired pita out the window. it explodes in a cloud of dust on the sidewalk. and that's all there is to this life.

to his ability to 'connect the dots'...

one love asshole @oneloveasshole · Mar 5

looking at a pile of dust i swept up and thinking pretty good haul.

...Including Steve in your timeline is a good, often hilarious way to keep yourself off your high horse. He truly wrenches the most out of the short form that Twitter affords us, as any good writer should.

4. @asdkfjasdlfjd

a;sdkfjasdlfj;d

@asdkfjasdlfjd · Jul 21

With the sensation of making a historical insight, caught self depressed at desk job beginning to conceptualize my sadness as rats scurrying around in my brain, like the ratatouille movie where they steer and control you, guided by sad rats

Nathan Duggan has some stories and poems on some places on the internet. He lives in Maine and has been using his twitter to curate a very strong, inventive, and engaging series of vignettes about work, self-worth, and crustaceans/slugs/insects. From our personal correspondence and from reading his writing, both published and non-published on the internet, i think the crustacean/slug/insect thing goes deep and may be one of the best/unique themes in writing I've encountered lately. Because of his consistently good tweets about crabs and muck...

a;sdkfjasdlfj;d

@asdkfjasdlfjd · Jul 11

Going to go to the beach today maybe, where there are, among other things, crabs and muck

...that good office depression life...

a;sdkfjasdlfj;d

@asdkfjasdlfjd · Jul 9

Thursday at work we get a little giddy. We talk maybe too loudly in the cells of our cubicles, we cackle and sneer. 'Another day another dollar,' rolling our eyes so hard they go into the backs of our heads. Outside it is raining -- perhaps it's been raining our whole lives

...and droll observational humor...

a;sdkfjasdlfj;d

@asdkfjasdlfjd · Jul 3

There is not a single law against it, but for some reason swimming in the marshes of my town has always seemed 'forbidden' to me

... I told him recently to repurpose several of his recent tweets into a short-chapter, kafkaesque, vignette-style book about working a shitty office job. I think it would be a good book.

3.  @bartlebytaco

sebastian castillo @bartlebytaco · 18h

yes i am 32... the age jesus christ infamously went “beast mode”

Sebastian Castillo is, in my mind, a principal player in making jokes about writing on twitter. With a chapbook of single-sentence "novels" on Bottlecap press and a hybrid prose/poetry collection forthcoming from Word West, Sebastian is unassuming, unpretentiously pretentious, and consistently hilarious. I think his experience as an adjunct writing professor in NYC has helped him hone is droll absurdism, his self-aware silliness. From his ongoing dream journals...

sebastian castillo

@bartlebytaco · Apr 2

dreamt that diet coke cost $40 a can. no way am i going to pay that! in the next dream, i was a field mouse running away from a big, ugly ogre who was trying to cook me up in his soup. no thanks!

to his seamless, stupid pop culture punchlines...

sebastian castillo

@bartlebytaco · Mar 14

just wrote this play called king lear. it’s about this huge dumbass old guy

to his revelatory, Bernhardian confessions...

sebastian castillo

@bartlebytaco · Apr 19

my mother said when i was a child the funniest thing in the world to me was frosty the snowman. to me, nothing was funnier than frosty the snowman

...Sebastian is probably indie lit's best-kept secrets, at least in terms of tweets. In a world of viral inanity, his tweets will remind you that, yes, writers can use their knowledge and power to be interesting, actually.

2. @a_neutral_space

Neutral Spaces - Intern

@a_neutral_space · Apr 22

me, reading submission guidelines for some wix site lit mag with ads and 206 twitter followers: "damn my BEST huh? you want my BEST? damn alright i guess you deserve it"

Filling the void, I think, left behind by the likes of @muumuuinterns and other strange, anonymous, shitposty literature community accounts, the Neutral Spaces Intern - who is definitely not Dave Eggers - has captured my heart with his consistent mix of @dril-style dumbness to prescient commentary-on-the-commentary...

Neutral Spaces - Intern

@a_neutral_space · Mar 19

poetry? more like DICKSUCKETRY

And poop jokes...

Neutral Spaces - Intern

@a_neutral_space · Mar 17

my poems about shitting into a teacup have been nominated for the national book award. finally

Dav- I mean, The Intern - is a daily lit community supplement, the guy in the corner making the jerkoff motion and drinking from a forty while the rest of the party argues about Lorrie Moore or whatever. I'm also partial to the quick snatches of the Intern's personal narrative arc, when we get to see them; whether drunk on his fixie or punching in at the k-mart distribution center, the Intern's story is odd, beautiful, and oddly beautiful.

Neutral Spaces - Intern

@a_neutral_space · Oct 9, 2019

drumk on my fixie,and i have stolen twenty eight dollars worth of hanburgers from the enemy. timme for ooetry

1. @markleidner

mark leidner

@markleidner · Sep 6, 2018

each morning I put one uncooked ravioli in a thermos. i pour hot water over it, steeping it like tea, and then i drink it all day at work (i work at the white house) and at the end of the day, as i take the last sip of the tea, the soft ravioli slides into my mouth, and i eat it

Mark Leidner is great. He's an incredible artist. He has books of poetry on some small presses, a delightful collection of short stories on Tyrant Books, a few short film credits, and who knows what else in the works. He's a legit "creative" whose work is tight, focused, surreal, and meticulous - Only someone like Mark Leidner could write a 50 page love story/political thriller about ants and keep you gripped the entire way through, or a book of aphorisms that never runs dull. And his tweets are similarly powerful, strange and evocative. I highly encourage you to follow him, as his pure content to general self promotion ratio is incredible; he's almost a purely content-driven tweeter who scores 3-pointers with every shot. From his running X-Files bits...

mark leidner

@markleidner · May 19, 2015

mulder: in heaven will we finally be able to punish each other without causing each other to suffer?

scully: I don't know, mulder

to his aphoristic nanofictions...

mark leidner

@markleidner · Jun 24, 2012

unnecessary stop signs every ten feet on an endless highway with no intersections

to his running "unhinged guy at the podium" bits...

mark leidner

@markleidner · May 14, 2019

[pounding pulpit] we live on god’s ass

Mark is a top choice for anyone looking for good tweets by a good writer on a regular basis.