Feedback starting April 22, 1998 My comments are in [red brackets]. Date: Fri, 24 Apr 1998 11:33:41 -0700 From: "S.E. Cook" <secook@u.washington.edu> Subject: Your Predicament Hi Cameron, I just this morning checked out on-line writing and found your email message. It made me curious so I read the media pieces. I'll admit that it struck me as so weird that I had trouble believing it. However, the NYT don't lie! ;-) After reading the articles, I checked out your fiction. I'll admit it worries me a touch because I too have a personal website that includes some of my writing. I would certainly hate to think that creativity could be permanently stifled by stupid people. I'm having a hard time believing that a) those dumb women could have perceived your writing in the manner they did, and that b) the moron who fired you could have done so on the basis of your fiction writing. How can people be so incredibly ignorant? At first I was outraged to think of your having been fired because of your writing. Now I'm beginning to feel the same way you do that it's incredible that your colleagues could have had the responses they did to your writing. Maybe I am a moral coward, but many of the stories I have written have never seen the light of day (or at least been seen by the eyes of other people) just because I was uncomfortable about what they would think of me after reading them. I consider myself to be a fairly normal, average human being. What would the world be like if others could get inside your head and condemn you on the basis of your thoughts? I think George Orwell and Aldous Huxley gave that one a go. But it's frightening because everyone has random and strange thoughts, but part of what makes us human beings is our ability to filter those things and not act on them. It kind of makes you wonder what's going on inside the heads of the women who complained to your boss about them, doesn't it? :-) Anyway, enough rambling. I'm glad you've found another job that you like. I'm sorry you had to go through that crumby experience. It strikes me that creative people need to find ways to protect themselves from these kinds of onslaughts. It should be illegal for someone to persecute you for the content of your personal website. Susan Cook secook@u.washington.edu P.S. You must be okay. Your mother loves you. ;-) [Yes, and I love my mother, even if I forget to tell her.] Date: Fri, 24 Apr 1998 17:06:49 +0100 From: Tom Welsh <tom@draco.demon.co.uk> Subject: The stories that got you fired... Hi Cameron Sorry to be raking up this ancient history, but I just heard about your cause celebre through CMPnet on the Web. Being part Irish, I looked around for someone to slug but I was alone. Now I have thought it through, I wondered if there is any chance of reading some of the stories you had posted on your site at *that* time. I would like to form my own opinion as to how scary (or whatever) they are. Could you provide me with a pointer? Fwiw, I feel that your employer acted foolishly and rather gutlessly. (A better reaction might have been to tell the complaining employees that if they wanted to leave, they should leave... but that his firm did not cooperate with blackmail). However, I guess that you laid yourself open to it by signing the "At Will" agreement. From what I have read, he could have fired you for the way you parted your hair (or didn't). I am not particularly surprised at your colleagues' perhaps irrational behaviour. In England, where I live, there has just been a national media campaign to get one Deirdre Rashid released from prison, on the grounds of a miscarriage of justice. Cabinet minitsers have promised to take up the matter. Deirdre, in fact, is a character in a TV soap opera! Many people have serious trouble distinguishing fact from fiction - in fact they probably have difficulty with any kind of abstraction. ----------- Hmmm, I see. Your colleagues probably didn't care to associate with someone who was capable of actually writing down these words that everyone uses in private and these things that everyone (at least everyone who thinks) thinks. Perhaps writing something down seems to actualise it? Come to think of it, otherwise why write it down? I think your stories are interesting and provocative. Especially to a non-creative, left hemisphere guy like me. I was happy to read "The Bathroom" - the story that sums up everything people have been leaving out of fiction for over 2000 years. (And now I can see why!) 8-) I began at the bottom (no jokes please). After reading "Me and Her", I thought "what's the fuss about?" After reading "Eat shit & die", I thought "so that's what the fuss is about". My theory is that your co-workers were affected by social angst. They thought "For God's sake, what can we talk to this guy about? How can we even look him in the eye? What's he for Pete's sake thinking about while we are bending over our PCs????" I hope you don't feel in a "Slurpees Are From Heaven" mood too often. But then I often worry about how Stephen King can sleep. And I am sure he has no trouble at all. Thanks for your indulgence. [My Response: Please try to understand that most authors are capable of writing outside their personal lives/experiences. Most of my writing is stemmed from something I thought of, but not necessarily something I experienced. Just because I'm capable of thinking something doesn't mean that I'm actually capable of performing that act. Please understand that the characters in my fiction are not necessarily reflective of my personality. There is a disctinct difference between my "thoughts" and my "real life."] - Cam