The answer is Brandon Sanderson who is freely sharing his knowledge of how to write with the world. His teachings will touch more in the coming years than any stodgy 1920s writer ever cared to.
I think a couple are bad answers (Wilder? She's fine-ish, but America's Homer? Very, very, no) but can't figure out which ones might be striking you that way.
I think this is a recency bias in effect.
But damn, Sanderson writes some great stories.
Someone else brought up Spielberg and I think a pretty good argument could be made there. But Twain has already stood the test of time.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laura_Ingalls_Wilder#Political...
Tell me you're an Engineer/don't hang out with actual "English Majors" (I'm 41, I don't spend much time on The Quad these days) without telling me as much.
Lit nerds love nothing more than fighting over the Canon (which, is the point of the article). To hell with banishing whole groups because you're lazy and stereotyping (this sentence is ironic considering the start of the paragraph...)