Kathy Acker (April 18, 1947[1][3] – November 30, 1997) was an American experimental novelist, playwright, essayist, and postmodernist writer. She was influenced by the Black Mountain School poets, William S. Burroughs, David Antin, French critical theory, Carolee Schneeman, Eleanor Antin, and by philosophy, mysticism, and pornography, as well as classic literature that she artistically plagiarized from.