…but this flicked me on the raw:
I’ve just received a solicitation from this firm for its first anthology. It bills itself thus:
The name ‘Hidden Voice Publishing’ reflects the essential need to make our collective stories and voices heard and that is what we hope to do with this publication. In this world, there are dominant voices that always seem to speak the loudest. These voices are homogenous, and they often control the narratives in which we are all framed. Within in the pages of this collection, you will instead find Hidden Voices that also believe that they have something to say. These are the voices that no longer wish to be invisible and the voices that demand to be noticed. The world in 2019 can be a bleak place and many of us often feel unseen and unheard. Take the stories in these pages to your heart; stand with us to fight for our freedoms and celebrate our differences.
And I, who have done my best to write about human sexual differences with sympathy and delicacy, found that I was seriously offended.
“Hidden voices” -- ? Great God in heaven, they’re damned near the only “voices” the media have allowed us to hear! They do their best to suppress any point of view that denies them total approval to the point of obsequiousness! This is especially the case in fiction. If your novel dares to express even a gentle difference of opinion with these sexual emissionaries, they’re immediately all over you like a cheap suit, demanding that you be silenced!
When I receive “reviews” that go like this:
Intolerant RubbishI normally don't review books that I don't finish, but I'm making an exception this time. I made it about a third of the way in. Story and characters ok. But then the author needs some unreasonable conflict for a character to stand up against. I can only hope that the author doesn't someday find herself in a disliked minority, finally, FINALLY finding some measure of tolerance. Turning the trans community into objects of yet more ridicule. To defend the position that "they all just need mental health counseling to accept who they are" is unbelievable. It may turn out to be a minor scene in the book, but I ain't sticking around to find out. Do not support this author. I can't state strongly enough how offensive I find this portrayal.
…and get reams of hate mail from that “reviewer’s” ideological fellow-travelers, I become incensed. And so I cry:
You Have Achieved It.
WE WILL NOT “CELEBRATE” YOU!
WE WILL NOT READ YOUR WHINING!
GO BACK INTO HIDING!
Apologies, Gentle Reader. I suppose I can say exactly why; after all, I just did. Sometimes my Irish rises and I have to vent. But I’m tired of it all – tired enough that I sometimes wish we hadn’t given “them” that first inch. If that’s unworthy of me, so be it. I’m no saint.
