Simon Owens of Bloggasm has an excellent post that draws together the recent William Saunders flap and the rather more high profile one going on at Pharyngula. I’m sure I have said this before, but if you are a high profile blogger you have to be very careful what you post, because if you post something negative about someone then some of your readers will go after that person, and they will behave in ways you find deplorable (and for this reason I think that publishing links to negative reviews of your books is a bad thing, even if you think you are just acknowledging the reviewer’s opinion.). Most of the hate mail I got while I was publishing Emerald City did not come from authors, it came from fans who were offended on behalf of the favorite authors (often by rather mild reviews).

But actually the thing that struck me most about Owens article (and like him I’m going to be careful about how much is actually proven) is that if the stories about the 1-800 Flowers hate mail are true, what kind of stupid and cowardly idiot uses his wife’s work email to hide behind when sending out hate mail?