On Thu, Apr 13, 2023 at 4:53 PM Kevin M. <[email protected]> wrote:
> > > On Thu, Apr 13, 2023 at 8:08 AM Adam Bowie <[email protected]> wrote: > >> I'm pretty sure that JK Rowling used "JK" rather than "Joanne" simply >> because her publisher thought it was expedient for sales. Boys aren't (or >> weren't) as likely to buy a fantasy book written by a female as written by >> a male. I'm sure that as a largely unpublished author, she relied heavily >> on her publisher's advice on this. >> >> As for Robert Galbraith - I think that was simply a nomme de plume >> allowing her to write something different. At the time, she would have >> probably earned a much bigger advance and initial sales if she had >> published under her own name. She did originally try to keep her >> identity secret, so this was almost certainly to throw others off the case. >> > > Both very plausible scenarios, but the fact remains she’s had two > professional opportunities to present herself as a woman and for whatever > reason(s) chose instead to be thought of as a man. And now she is perhaps > the most outspoken critic of others who present themselves with genders > different from the ones they were born with. She decries allowing > transgendered people the right to do what they want as she believes they > aren’t who they claim to be, yet her entire career is based on doing > exactly that. Even granting the misogyny of the publishing industry, there > is an obvious double-standard to her criticism. I cannot help but suggest > that Rowling is not comfortable in her own skin, and just as so many > outwardly homophobic conservatives turn out to be masking their own gay > feelings, Rowling might be overcompensating. > I'm not sure that "JK Rowling" was ever presented as a male author simply by virtue of the book using initials rather than a gendered first name. If a reader made that deduction on their own part, I think it says more about them than the author. But if an author chooses to use initials rather than their given firstname, then that's entirely up to them. I'd also note that early reviews of the first title clearly referenced that the author was female. It wasn't exactly a secret. Authors choose to use different names for lots of reasons. I don't suppose Stephen King was suffering from some kind of multiple personality disorder when he chose to publish some books under the name Richard Bachman. And I'm not sure that either CS Lewis or JRR Tolkien were trying to hide their genders when they were published. But horses for courses. Look - any mention of Rowling and her views, or indeed discussions of gender identities on the internet tends to end up degenerating into unpleasantness, and I'm not going to follow that path. I'm also not going to either defend or attack someone I don't know on the basis of a lot of internet vitriol (Honestly, the gender "debate" is actually probably worse on this side of the Atlantic than in the US). Adam -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TVorNotTV" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/tvornottv/CAD_sJGAGyDaL-Wnk6A7wJMFS9eGUQWZ%2BjUR-mnNf0nLOax%2BAeg%40mail.gmail.com.
