Middle Grade Writers Association

buzhidao said:

Sounds like someone got his dick caught in the garage door

This is what happens when you work on your Vespa naked

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Vegetarian Cannibal said:

I feel this person is deliberately trolling, and I have no patience with people who instigate flame wars. This guy clearly wants the attention. We're giving it and offering vitriol another platform. Mission accomplished.

I just wish these sort of assholes stayed out of publishing. Too many piss-babies taking up oxygen in the field already.

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DanielaTorre said:

The only good thing this person did was omit the author's name. I wonder if he truly did it to spare the author public humiliation, or merely to give himself the liberty to speak and seem like a troll rather than a bully had he personally named-names.

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Tromboli said:

Little more info on this guys: he's a self proclaimed failed self published author (he says this in one of his posts on facebook), a reviewer and apparently a small press editor (though I don't know where). This isn't a big name editor with a complex. He does think he knows it all though, he just doesn't have anything to back it up.

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I agree completely with all of these posters. I think that post was needlessly and unhelpfully vitriolic. Since he omitted the author's name -- it makes me wonder if he even read the book in question, or just decided to launch a troll attack based on some other thing about the author that rubbed him the wrong way. Either way, this 'editor' is not a professional. Since I've never seen his anything editted by him, the quality of his editing might be excellent -- but the his manner of dealing with people suggests he has a lot of deep-seeded insecurity and inferiority complex issues. Neither of those things should manifest themselves in a professional context.

Jennifer Laughran tweeted about this last night: https://twitter.com/literaticat

Quick! Douse him with fluconazole!

Shame *bim bim bim* shame *bim bim bim* shame *bim bim bim*.... (repeat)

Kylabelle said:

Jennifer Laughran tweeted about this last night: https://twitter.com/literaticat

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It's quite refreshing to read reactions by actual publishing professionals in this case ... and that they also think the guy is just an bitter curmudgeon masquerading as an expert.

I am both outraged and indignant. How dare they say such a thing. How dare they !

Saw his post on Facebook. The man comes across as a jerk. I don't know who the writer is who allegedly deserved his wrath, but his rant was so over the top, poorly spelled, and personally vicious, it wouldn't surprise me that he is, indeed, a failed writer and a little person with delusions of godhood/authorhood and uses his position to belittle others and browbeat them until they quit. Whiplash, anyone?

The man is, IMO, a tool...and not a useful one at that.

Bicyclefish said:

I utilized my Google Fu in a search for relevant credentials, but I think I tumbled down the rabbit hole. Come join me.

I located a Smashwords page with the same profile photo as the Facebook page. From there I found an Amazon page with the same bio and mention of Black Spirit Publishing, which appears to be the self publishing company for his book. That photo then led to a Twitter account where he posted about being was banned from... *drumroll*... Absolute Write in March of 2011, perhaps because of this thread.

Thus we have come full circle.

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Are you sure that's the right Edward Gordon? None of his three self published books on Amazon are middle grade. I'm so confused.

gingerwoman said:

Are you sure that's the right Edward Gordon? None of his three self published books on Amazon are middle grade. I'm so confused.

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I'm pretty sure it's the same guy. If you look at his twitter account, the picture appears to be the same guy in this YouTube review he does on behalf of the MGWA. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=POecfRpcElE

A whole lot of red flags showing up here - I don't know how many he's tricked into joining his group either there or on Facebook but they'd be best advised to cut and run.

Strangely enough Victoria Strauss just posted yesterday about being careful about online sites and their "expertise" - it's easy enough to set up a page and claim you know all about writing.

Do your research, boys and girls. Take a little time and research that publisher, that agent, that writing group and self-proclaimed "experts" like this.

Save you a whole lot of heartache and money in the long run.



Edited to add: Here's his discussion on the Writer's Digest forum from a few years ago. I think it says all that needs to be said. A few years old but I doubt much has changed.

http://www.writersdigest.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=65351&start=30

If I wanted to be insulted, I'd submit my dark, rapey, dystopian, starvy-croaky, incesty, mental MS in and try to pass it off as Middle Grade. The horrible stuff only starts like one third into the MS.

Dang, maybe it's time to dust off my romance I wanted to sell to Harlequin -- "The Christian Virgin Cowboy's Secret Baby." Or maybe he'd be better pleased with my soon-to-be middle grade "Snakes in a Bonnet" -- a mashup of Amish romance and Greek mythology?

Deb Kinnard said:

Dang, maybe it's time to dust off my romance I wanted to sell to Harlequin -- "The Christian Virgin Cowboy's Secret Baby." Or maybe he'd be better pleased with my soon-to-be middle grade "Snakes in a Bonnet" -- a mashup of Amish romance and Greek mythology?

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For the record, I would totally read the hell out of "Snakes in a Bonnet". Just saying.

Deb Kinnard said:

Dang, maybe it's time to dust off my romance I wanted to sell to Harlequin -- "The Christian Virgin Cowboy's Secret Baby." Or maybe he'd be better pleased with my soon-to-be middle grade "Snakes in a Bonnet" -- a mashup of Amish romance and Greek mythology?

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Sorry, beat you to the punch (sort of). The Virgin Cowboy Billionaire's Secret Baby.

Dang! I knew the idea was too good to be mine alone. May your Virgin Cowboy enjoy many, many sales! When does it release?

Deb Kinnard said:

Dang! I knew the idea was too good to be mine alone. May your Virgin Cowboy enjoy many, many sales!

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LOL Thanks!

It comes out after my novel, "Non-virginal nuns do Dallas on bicycles with snakes in their baskets" is released. Surefire bestseller.