I did mention influential authors in my SOP, and now I'm kind of starting to regret it: DFW, Jennifer Egan, Zadie Smith, Pynchon and Denis Johnson. With DFW especially, (seeing as he is quite understandably going out of vogue atm) I think it becomes easier to dismiss someone's writing if their influences smell of lit crit guy (and for the record, I'm doing my best to expand my reading). Then again, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to just lie to the adcom folks. I was in a bit of a bind, to be honest. Hopefully it works out for me