Edit: Below is not what I originally posted.  I wanted to try and talk about assumptions, public persona, and knowing your audience.  To do that, I wanted to feature Juliette Wade, someone I admire and respect, and use her as an example of how her public persona influenced some of my assumptions.

Unfortunately, it was brought to my attention that it didn’t come across that way.  Someone suggested that I remove the post entirely, and stated that it looked like I was reacting badly to a critique from Juliette.

The truth is, she gave me a good critique, and my original post wasn’t about what she said as much as it was about me making assumptions on her tastes, based on her public persona.

So let me edit this down, and try to salvage this.

If you’re reading this, you should check out Juliette Wade‘s blog.  Actually, that site doesn’t look like it is updated as often as this one.

Juliette is a cool individual.  Here are some facts:

She has been published several times, with short stories in Analog and Clarkesworld. She studies cultures and language. She hosts Worldbuilding Hangouts on Google+ every Thursday. She posts frequently to Facebook, often quoting or linking to stories concerning feminism, racial inequality, or the need for diversity in fiction.

Again, she didn’t hate my story, and she didn’t say anything that hurt my feelings.  I really value the things she had to say, and I have a great deal of respect for the time and effort she put into it, knowing that the story she was reading was not the sort I thought she would enjoy.

Both workshops were overwhelmingly positive experiences for me, in fact.  But I can see how someone might take what I originally posted and think that it was something other than I intended, so I’m editing this.

Let’s all be cool to each other.  Tomorrow, my topic will be “Every Writer Needs and Editor.” Looking at this post, apparently some bloggers could use one, too. 🙂