You'd think it natural that writers would be good at Twitter – after all, words are their bread and butter. However, some authors have found themselves host to extremely boring feeds, or have misread the medium altogether, never quite understanding what a "mention" is, or a bit.ly link. It's a sad state of affairs when politicians are better at Twitter than literature's experts.



There are, however, a bunch of authors who have perfected their Twitter presence, in some cases earning millions of followers to go with that prized blue tick. Margaret Atwood and Neil Gaiman are the leading examples, but here we offer 10 alternatives whose tweets make our hearts sing.

The American-Russian author of brilliant comic novels such as The Russian Debutante's Handbook is just as much fun on Twitter. Fond of selfies documenting his travels, Shteyngart's current timeline features a photograph of him kissing a koala bear (he's in Australia right now). There is also a Tumblr collection of his famous blurbs. Occasionally guilty of retweeting his own praise, but hey, nobody's perfect.

At an awards ceremony with Martha Stewart. Life complete. — Gary Shteyngart (@Shteyngart) May 3, 2014

Cole is a master of Twitter – he mixes brilliant bon mots, vignettes of poetry, art, pop culture references, photography (like this series on celebrities watching themselves on television) and quotes to make his timeline an always entertaining read. The Open City writer has the form nailed. Follow.





"There's a divinity that shapes our ends, rough-hew them how we will."—Drake "Started from the bottom, now we're here."—Shakespeare — Teju Cole (@tejucole) May 19, 2014

TO A BLONDE IN THE SUBWAY Your terrified child's incessant cry of "I don't like him!" when I sat down is maybe not entirely not your fault. — Teju Cole (@tejucole) May 19, 2014

JCO is one of literature's leading voices who has managed to bring her wit and wisdom to the internet. I've picked her over Margaret Atwood as Atwood's feed, though great, veers slightly too much towards local interest – if you're not living in either Toronto, Ottawa or Vancouver, a lot of it will be irrelevant.



JCO, on the other hand, is superb at a timely one-liner on whichever news story is currently doing the rounds. She's also good at selecting quotes and distilling political opinion. Plus she's very funny, and retweets stuff like this.

Being stoned varies geographically, considerably. — Joyce Carol Oates (@JoyceCarolOates) May 16, 2014

Racking up a formidable 9.22 million followers, Coelho is a Twitter behemoth. Fond of a vintage-filtered photograph (see below), his tweets range from football (his picture with Ronaldo), to quotes from philosophers, to retweets of news from the literary world. He also tweets in Portuguese and has just joined VK.com, the Russian version of Facebook.

The critically acclaimed Submarine author excels at tweeting. Not only is he a wonderful purveyor of the one-liner, he also retweets stuff as good as his own hilariously on-point observations. He's basically very good at seeking out the best shareable humour on the internet, like this average guitarist classified advert. He doesn't tend to tweet articles or news sources, preferring to keep it pop.



How have I lived so long without knowing that the only full anagram of Britney Spears is Presbyterians — joe dunthorne (@joedunthorne) May 25, 2014

No more mr niche guy. — joe dunthorne (@joedunthorne) May 2, 2014

Jackie Collins's Twitter stream is exactly as you'd expect it to be. She spells pics "pix" and poses at events with a smile buried in lipstick. She never uses just the one exclamation mark!!! 99% of her tweets are just links to her Facebook page!!!

Like Cher, WHO TWEETS IN ALL CAPS, Jackie is worth following for the LOLZ. Oh, and she likes R'n'B crooner Usher.

Loving @USHER'S single GOOD KISSER — Jackie Collins (@jackiejcollins) May 13, 2014

A man in Ohio got 11 months in jail for having sex with a rubber float!! Couldn't make it up!!! — Jackie Collins (@jackiejcollins) May 9, 2014

Sloane Crosley is the author of two brilliant essay collections, I Was Told There'd Be Cake and How Did You Get This Number. (She also wrote this piece on insomnia for the Guardian last week). Tweeting from NYC, her feed is a witty stream of perfectly expressed thoughts on creativity and productivity, friends and her mum. Even the notes in her iPhone are worth reading.

I have sprung from the womb of someone who e-mails in florescent comic sans. — Sloane Crosley (@askanyone) May 5, 2014

The writer, philosopher and TV presenter is sometimes serious, sometimes light-hearted: either way, his feed is always interesting. He also tweets a lot of art and photography, and links to many articles. Crap profile picture though.

The best cure for one's bad tendencies is to see them fully developed in someone else. — Alain de Botton (@alaindebotton) April 26, 2014

The constant challenge of modern relationships: how to prove more interesting than the other's smartphone. — Alain de Botton (@alaindebotton) April 9, 2014

From tweets about his beloved Hibernian FC to music, travel and the state of journalism: Welsh's feed is bound to throw up something of interest. He also owns the best T-shirt in the world, a mash-up of Joy Division's Unknown Pleasures sleeve artwork and cats. He tweeted it here. Too many retweets, though, and not enough original Welsh.

AND I got to sing Oasis 'Don't Look Back in Anger' in karaoke. Everybody needs to do that at least once in their lives. — Irvine Welsh (@WelshIrvine) May 17, 2014

Aside from the fact his profile picture shows him covering half his face with his hand (yo, Augusten, that's not how a portrait works), Burroughs is very good at Twitter. He mixes retweets of other people's funnies (especially the brilliant Julieanne Smolinski) with his own one-liners. Then he just adds a load of weird stuff in, like this, for example.

Somebody just told me Glenda and Dorothy were not lovers. — Augusten Burroughs (@augusten) May 11, 2014