How to end a writing career
Poppy Z Brite chronicles the spectacular and fucked-up crash-and-burn of writer Kevin W. Reardon, a.k.a. Cole A. Adams.
When writer/editor Steve Berman criticized one of Reardon’s story in an anthology review, Reardon responded by leaving “anonymous” comments on Berman’s LiveJournal blog very seriously urging hm to commit suicide. But this is the Web, and it’s amazingly simply to discover who is behind the comments on your blog — Reardon was unmasked, and has apparently moved on to making death threats.
This sort of thing gets around. If an editor hasn’t already heard about this, he or she soon will. Reardon’s career as a paid writer of horror fiction is, in all likelihood, finished.
As Elizabeth Bear says, “Dear aspiring writers: don’t do that.”
Add comment January 19th, 2009
