I kind of hate using "American" to refer to "from the USA," because, well, everybody in "the Americas" is "American," so it seems imprecise. So bear with me in re: "USA-ian."
So in the Read Around the World inaugural post, I talk about wanting to read all this literature from and about all these places, but to read different perspectives from different social locations. Seems pretty obvious, then, that I could start by looking at the USA itself. And since I worked in AK, a fun-for-me place to start would be Native Alaska, and by extension, Native America. Because I honestly do not know of many Native writers, and I should. So I hope to start looking for more works by Native American (Native USA-ian?) writers.
I'm ashamed to say it, but right now, today, the only Native American literary authors I can name are:
N. Scott Momaday
Sherman Alexie
Ella Deloria
That is just thinking of fiction in the Anglo tradition, so don't worry, I plan to be more inclusive once I get rolling on this project. Like I would certainly want to include Nora Marks Dauenhauer, but I was thinking more for her history works and narratives; I didn't realize until just now that she also wrote poems and short stories, which is clearly "literary" writing. Which brings me back to "I have a lot to learn"--even the folks I have heard of, I don't know the extent of their writings.
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