Breaking the Cardinal Rule…
It’s taken me a full day to decide if I wanted to break the cardinal rule and post this response to a recent review I got for one of my historical novellas. Now, I’m a big believer of not responding to reviews—good or bad—and I typically never do unless it involves a technical issue, but the fact that said “reviewer” felt the need to open his/her review with: “This was a perfect example of how people of color are still fully capable of cultural appropriation and erasure/oppression.” makes me wonder how much my being an author of color influenced his/her bigoted comments. I also wonder how my story specifically illustrated her claims of “cultural appropriation” and “oppression,” because those accusations were still very unclear to me, even at the end of her “review.” So faced with this mountain of ignorance, I couldn’t help but right this wrong… Below, you’ll find italicized quotations of the reviewers opinion of my story, A SWEET SURRENDER, and my response to her opinionated ass...