Are we sure we want to bring them back? Today it’s jesters, tomorrow it might be flatulists.

Makes sense to me. It’s a good example of enlightened self-interest, which is probably the closest thing to altruism we can expect from a multinational corporation.

You’re wrong about Oysters, Joanna.

Thank you. Yeah, it's a classic story of the heart being in conflict with itself.

I'm taking that as a sincere compliment, but what in my post make you think I was twisted?

he’s a really vocal homophobe,

I don’t believe in judging the quality of a piece of art based on how much of an asshole they are in real life. That’s the silliness of people boycotting Ender’s Game just because they don’t like the author’s (probably sincere) religious beliefs, even though they don’t flavor the movie’s content.

Octavia Butler’s publishers put a white woman on the cover of Dawn, the first book in her brilliant Xenogenesis trilogy, even though the protagonist is a woman of color. They didn’t believe the average SF fan would read a book with a black woman on the cover.

Most writers are (rightly) afraid of alienating editors. They talk amongst themselves, too.

Not taking sides here, but the agent might have had a different person sifting through the slush-pile that day who liked the manuscript more than the first one, and passed it along to the boss.

Is getting paid for your work as difficult for writers as Harlan Ellison describes in this profane, vitriolic rant he gives on the topic?

Becoming a writer is only the initial hurdle. Staying a writer- getting up every day and pulling the plow is infinitely harder, I’ve been told.

Those are also the only genres where diverse novels are valued and, as a general rule, YA and women's fic does not allow for higher level literary fiction.

I'm a failed writer. I am so glad I tried, though. I learned a hell of a lot. Like everyone else says, do it anyway. Console yourself with the fact that even if you do get paid for your work, it won't be much. Most writers don't get much more than their advance. You got nothing to lose.

Holy moly, this is such an insightful policy. So many times I see a tat and think “You wanted THAT forever?”

That’s because you don’t know them personally. All the other people who are concerned about their marital status are their friends and family. Or idiots busy-bodies.

Because you have been friends with them for a long time, and you don’t want it to be that the next time you have them over to your place, it will be separately. That’s logical. It’s only when total strangers start worrying about their divorce that it becomes confusing.

I’ve been saying this for years in order to explain how Fascism and Communism sometimes (ie Hitler’s Germany and Stalin’s USSR) were on opposite sides of the spectrum, but looked so similar.

I'm playing Shadowrun for the Sega Genesis. I just discovered it on archive.org and I'm playing it in-browser. I love it so far.

The part that puzzles me is, how do people develop such stupidity without being constantly humbled by it? How in the world does such ignorance birth such towering, TOWERING arrogance?