Letters to the Editor

We're interested in your thoughts on The Readerville Journal and its contents, and while everyone is invited into the Forum, we know message boards aren't for everyone. Comments are open on (all the but the earliest) individual posts, but to send a good old-fashioned letter to the editor, use the comments box below. Thanks for reading The Readerville Journal!
—The Editors

Comments

[Meg Waite Clayton]

What a rare treat it was to head for Readerville this evening and come upon James Klise's "Ode to Barbara Pym." I am such a Pym fan, and never can understand why she isn't hugely popular. She is one of the few authors I hesitate to read in public places, as I always feel so silly laughing by myself. And an author I find myself recommending again and again. Bravo on the wonderful piece!

[Yvonne M.]

THANK YOU! If the letters could be larger I would surely make them that way, although they don't fully convey how I feel about READERVILLE or the impact that it has had on my life for as long as I have been a part of the community.

There is always that tense moment when I log onto the computer in the morning and wait for my home page to load, will it be there or will that crazy "401 error page not found" be there instead. It's always with a grand sigh of relief and a smile on my face when I see that READERVILLE is still here.

The article/post: Real Authors Just Inches from Your Face was a favorite entry for me and I've spent a little time watching some of the clips from BookVideos.tv and enjoying them quite a bit.

Congrats on the new design and keep the great content coming.

[John Weir]

Dear Readerville,

It was very swell to read Sue Russell's comments about my first book, *The Irreversible Decline of Eddie Socket*, which I published 19 years ago! Gosh. I just wanna say, about my *second* novel, *What I Did Wrong*, which, Russell says, received "a generally disappointed response" - well, I *was* disappointed that *The New York Times* didn't review it. The *Times* didn't review *Eddie Socket*, either, and you would be amazed to know how long I sulked about that! I am a petty man. Nonetheless, I think it is true that the *Times* is just one of many "heterosexual-based" media outlets that don't pay much attention to what they consider "gay novels." I'm not saying I think of *What I Did Wrong* as a gay novel! I thought I was writing a novel about men and how hard it is for them to talk to each other, whether they're gay *or* straight. But the book had a gay protagonist/narrator, and so it got tagged "gay" and tossed to the bottom of the review pile. Am I whining? Sure, why not? I will note that of the maybe 20 print-media reviews that I got for *What I Did Wrong*, only two of them - *The Washington Post* and the Baltimore *Sun* - were from mainstream (non-gay) publications. And as far as I can tell, everybody who reviewed my book, in print, was a gay white man (except for one gay white woman). This leads me to suspect that straight people generally don't read gay books, or books they suspect are written by or about gay people. Of course, gay women writers have a much harder time reaching a large audience than gay male writers! And I don't think gay people read all that many novels, either. So, alas. All of which is just to say: Thanks for making room in your website for my book! Bookish internetty types seem to me generally more open to a wider range of reading material than big old entrenched conservative major daily newspapers! And you can quote me! Best, John Weir

[Karen Templer]

Hi, John — thanks for the note. There are actually quite a few fans of Eddie Socket around here, and lots of gay people who read novels and straight people who read "gay novels"! I hope you'll stick around.

For anyone who missed Sue Russell's piece, it's here: The Irreversible Decline.