RARA-AVIS: Re: But Seventeen with a Bullet!

From: Dave Zeltserman ( dave@hardluckstories.com)
Date: 15 May 2008


--- In rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com, Kevin Burton Smith <kvnsmith@...> wrote:
>
> Mildly Peeved wrote:
>
> > Kevin, I'm sorry, I can't resist commenting on your note about schtick
> > and fake personas, and I know it's been a few years since we met, and
> > while you're maybe not the best looking guy in the world, you're
> > certainly not the stonecold mean muthafucka you're trying to look like
> > in your photo on your blog...
>
> I look mean to you? You need to get out more. I think I look befuddled
> and lost and like I need glasses. Or at least to learn how to take
> sharper pictures.
>

I didn't say you looked mean... I said you were TRYING to look mean... A bit of difference there...

Kevin, I agree with you. All the posturing to create tough guy images mean nothing to me, nor do I care what the authors's background was. But unfortunately these days marketing hype like "platform" and "back story" are more important to some publishers than the actual books they're publishing. There's this unfortunate movement towards branding authors and putting out a package than caring about the merits of what's being published. BUT... the books that a RARA AVIS-like group 70 years from now will be discussing and reading will be based on the writing and not the image the author or his publisher tried to create. Hell, I couldn't care less about Hammett's background, I keep rereading his books and Continental Op stories because I love the writing.

Btw. I care so much about creating a tough guy image for myself that I included in my last few book bios that I used to do software development. Like there's such thing as a "tough guy" software developer...

--Dave Z.



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