LOS ANGELES (AP) — When a letter credited with inspiring Jack Kerouac to create a new literary genre suddenly surfaced, no one was happier than an 86-year-old poet and playwright from New Jersey. For more than 50 years, Gerd Stern had been wrongly accused of tossing what Kerouac called "the greatest piece of writing I ever saw" over the side of a houseboat. "Yes, I'm the guy who dropped the letter off the boat, but of course I didn't," Stern, laughing heartily, said after The Associated Press reported Sunday that the 16,000-word screed to Kerouac from his friend and literary muse Neal Cassady was found intact last week in a house in Oakland. "At least 12 literary publications through the years have accused me," Stern said.Read more on NewsOK.com