Do you like to know who writes the novels you read?
Does it matter to you who they are, and what they believe?
Does a disappointing encounter with an author turn you off their work?
Personally I prefer not to know.
Like a lot of people, I tend to put writers up on a pedestal and imagine them as alpha-humans, eloquent and wise, who use their superior intellects to produce high quality writing. I imagine female writers as beautiful women, and males as professorial types. Crazy, I know. Disappointment usually comes thanks to Google and Wikipedia.
Discovering that Orson Scott Card once wrote some really bigoted and homophobic essays for a Mormon news service tarnished my impression of him as an author. Ironically, discovering that Chuck Palahniuk is flamboyantly homosexual spoiled 'Fight Club' for me, because it changed the novel from a male friendship story to something homoerotic. Brandon Sanderson and Dan Wells; I enjoyed a few of their novels before coming across 'Writing Excuses', only to see that they are both kind of dorks. Shallow as it might sound, seeing a photo of a female author who is obese, or a male who looks like Pee-Wee Herman somehow makes me less interested in reading their work.
So how about you?
Does it matter to you who they are, and what they believe?
Does a disappointing encounter with an author turn you off their work?
Personally I prefer not to know.
Like a lot of people, I tend to put writers up on a pedestal and imagine them as alpha-humans, eloquent and wise, who use their superior intellects to produce high quality writing. I imagine female writers as beautiful women, and males as professorial types. Crazy, I know. Disappointment usually comes thanks to Google and Wikipedia.
Discovering that Orson Scott Card once wrote some really bigoted and homophobic essays for a Mormon news service tarnished my impression of him as an author. Ironically, discovering that Chuck Palahniuk is flamboyantly homosexual spoiled 'Fight Club' for me, because it changed the novel from a male friendship story to something homoerotic. Brandon Sanderson and Dan Wells; I enjoyed a few of their novels before coming across 'Writing Excuses', only to see that they are both kind of dorks. Shallow as it might sound, seeing a photo of a female author who is obese, or a male who looks like Pee-Wee Herman somehow makes me less interested in reading their work.
So how about you?
