(no subject)

[erastes]

Last week I applied to the Eastern Daily Press (my local paper) to have a blog on their website. I told them that I wanted to write a column about the woes and occasional joy of writing and getting published (or not)

I was accepted, told that I'd be unmoderated but they expected me to keep out of trouble and any complaints would be investigated, and that they'd set me up if I sent them bio, info etc. Which I duly did.

Today I got this response: They couldn't be bothered to spell my real name correctly, which is great for journalism!

"Thank you for that, but I feel I must disappoint you. Having taken advice from the EDP concerning your website, I must inform you that its content is not considered appropriate for the EDP brand.

In addition, you already have a blog and having Googled your name, Erastes comes top of the list.

Perhaps I should have checked earlier so please forgive me for any inconvenience or expectations I may have caused."

I wrote back:

Well, I can't say I'm not disappointed, but not really surprised - the newspaper made it fairly obvious that it was pretty homophobic with their cartoon last week. Sadly I hadn't seen that cartoon until after I had applied, and I would not have done so had I seen the cartoon first. However - I was not going to discuss anything regarding the subject I wrote about, (I am aware that not everyone would like that) but was planning to merely share my experiences in writing, give advice to other budding authors and write amusing anecdotes with regard to my frankly silly editors. It looks like this incident in itself will be worthy of being written about!

I'm sorry that "the brand" is so prejudiced. Perhaps one day the newspaper will realise that romance novels can be written about more than just men and woman and that love doesn't depend on gender.

The cartoon I refer to would not have been allowed had it been similarly poking "fun" at black people or muslims – it referred to the recent problem with the Catholic church wanting an exemption to the government ruling that they must include same-sex couples in their adoption plans. There was a little old lady from an adoption agency having tea with a clichéd gay couple – both overweight, one more girly and camp, the other butch and studded. There were gay pictures and gay posters all over the wall in case we hadn't got the point that they were GAY (because you can always tell that someone is gay just by looking at them, can't you?), and the butch one was pouring tea and said "I'll be mother." It caused a lot of complaints, one even from a solicitor from here (who is hetero and roman catholic to boot) – he was furious about it, wrote a letter of complaint which was actually published over last weekend. Good for him.

Never mind. Their loss. Now at least I know why they have ignored my request to review my novel. Subject matter notwithstanding, you would think that a local author would be newsworthy. But obviously not!

Onwards and upwards!