It's been an interesting few days folks. Tuesday night I was helping my daughter with her homework when I hear a teacher in the next county is coming under attack for writing racy novels on the news. Well, of course that caught my attention and I start listening more closely and what do you know. I know the author. She writes for one of the same publishers I do. Low and behold, one of her covers pops up on the screen with Ellora's Cave blazing on the top.
So this is the short version of the story. A small group of women, 5 at the most, has recently discovered that this teacher in their school district writes adult books and they are now worried that this teacher is looking at their kids in a sexual way. Here was my response to the TV. "WHAT THE FUCK!"
These women think adult romance books are disgusting and filthy and they think the teacher should choose between writing or teaching. "SAY WHAT?"
Okay, so they label the teacher a pedophile and think people shouldn't read adult romance novels because they find them disgusting and are afraid their children are going to be influenced by this.
Excuse me. Do you honestly think high school kids don't already think about sex, or see it in movies, HBO, Internet? How many teenage boys have seen porn on the Internet that would make adult romance novels seem boring? 99% of them for heaven's sake.
Now, this author has been writing under a pen name for about 20 years. She has never discussed her writing with her students and if asked about it her response is I don't know what you're talking about. It turns out students have known she's a writer for YEARS and are thrilled they have an English teacher who is so good at her profession that she's been published.
Now as the story unfolds, it turns out this woman who ran to the news station to bully this teacher is known for stirring up shit to get her name in the news and her face in the papers and TV. In fact, a few months prior this very same news station talked to this very same woman in the very same area about bullying. And here she is bullying a teacher. HEY LADY! Where do you think kids learn to bully? From people like you!
So, it takes half a day for the writing community nation wide to hear about this story and they reacted. The news station was bombarded with emails, calls, comments on their web site so furiously that they started shutting down the ability to comment. Every comment left was in support of the author and basically telling these backwoods, bored women to get a hobby and stop attacking good, solid, professional citizens.
A support page went up for the author on facebook and within 24 hours over 6000 people joined demanding an apology be made by the news station for reporting a bias one sided story without getting all the facts. Well, the news station joined the support group and said they would like to talk to people who live in the area and air their story.
This morning it happened. 20 people showed up and told the news station that this teacher/author was one of the best teachers in the district. She's been teaching for 25 years, writing for nearly 20 and never once sought fame in the community for her writing. She wrote under a pen name for a reason. They aired the story. It wasn't a good story, but it at least showed these handful of women did not speak for the community and they wanted her left alone.
Now, through all this the author's sales spiked tremendously. YaY! People who had no idea she wrote are now buying her books to see what the fuss is about. YaY! The author/teacher has refused to talk to the media and has been dignified and quiet through all of this. She comes out looking like the hero and these bored housewives with nothing better to do with their time than look for reasons to call the news station are being shunned by the community. YAY!
Let this be a lesson to people. If you are going to attack a writer, you better have a damn good reason and have your facts lined up or the writing community is going to come after you. The news station learned this and these women learned this in a very harsh manner.
I mean really, think about this people. What a teacher does off the clock is her business as long as it doesn't break any laws and she doesn't push her work to underage children. None of this happened. These women believe if you're a teacher you shouldn't have a life outside the school. Guess what, ain't gonna happen. What's next, pregnant teachers should be removed from the school because they have sex? Teachers aren't allowed to have sex at all? Um, how did these women get their children in the first place? Did they plop out of the sky?
Freedom of speech people. If you don't like the contents of the book, don't read it. It's very simple. Just like we don't like your ideas so we ignore you. See how easy that is?
Anyway, if you would like to support this teacher you can go to
http://www.facebook.com/#!/SupportJudyMays
We can't let narrow minded, busy bodied, publicity seekers, hypocrites (oh yes, if you knew the woman who started all this you'd understand the hypocrisy) try and destroy a person's life for 15 minutes of fame.
We have your back Judy Mays and this injustice simply couldn't be let go.
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