Comments on: Something Wicked This Way Comes & Why Writers Could Be in Great Danger

By: Ian

Ian — Sun, 21 Sep 2014 20:26:55 +0000

sorry for the late reply, but you’re right it does seem a little scary that our writing could disappear. My first novel I am working on is about a female contract killer, wonder if it would make people uncomfortable? don’t care really

By: Mark Fine

Mark Fine — Wed, 13 Aug 2014 23:44:31 +0000

The best review I’ve received todate for my historical fiction novel, THE ZEBRA AFFAIRE, was the very fact it made the reader uncomfortable (and question her motivations).

Reader Vardy Hardy said” Mark Fine manages to reveal the profoundly restrictive and dehumanizing laws of Apartheid South Africa in a manner that urged me to reflect on my own life and society. How often do I just go along with the way things are? How often do I question? Do I challenge aspects of our society that I know are unfair or even harmful to others? Am I willing to go to that uncomfortable place that questions the status quo? Would I be willing to risk my life for something I truly believe in?

I’m all for any work of art that shakes me out of my slumber.”

Yes Vardy Hardy was uncomfortable, but she surely discovered it was well worth it,

By: Michelle Morrison

Michelle Morrison — Wed, 13 Aug 2014 18:53:42 +0000

Excellent and thought provoking post. I agree the idea of getting a reward without working for it is dumb and pointless. We do live in a society that tends to think they’re entitled. I’ve read most of the books you’ve mentioned, and although they were disturbing, that isn’t a bad thing because these books did make me think and raised some good questions. Being uncomfortable is a good thing if you see as an opportunity to change for the better.

By: lenacomics

lenacomics — Mon, 14 Jul 2014 18:21:57 +0000

I’m a comic book artist.
From an early age, I have read lots of literature, greek and foreign, classic and contemporary, good and bad written, and everything has formed me as a person and an artist, many of them changed my point of view and inspired me. Of course I encountered repulsive or disturbing things or points of view and situations I don’t aprove, but those were the ones most etched in my mind, the things I may need to reconsider or change.

As an artist, I like to sketch just for self-expression, I find pleasure in creating for beauty alone, but the greatest reason that drives me to create, is that I want to make the world a better place. I want to talk to people about things I find important, and those things can be love, trust, happiness, friendship or rape, fascism, abusion, cruelty. I want to talk about everything there’s in life. And I want people to accept that, when reading my comics. I want them to be raped along with the character and experience the emotions and thoughts it generates to them.
It can be seen as a safe simulation of a situation like that. No one wants to get raped, but it happens every day, it’s a fact. Are we going to avoid it or be aware and change it, if we can?

This tendency is a really dangerous one. A new kind of censhorship. A bratty point of view, where everyone and everything exists for our well-being and everything that disturbs us or hurt us should be avoided or banned from our lives. As far as good things happen, bad ones will also occur. Beloved will die, people will hurt you, or attack you, or abuse you. It’s life. You have to confront stuff.

University students shouldn’t think that way. As you wrote, they are the leaders of the furure. They should want to learn what happens in the world, or happend in the past and formed the world the way it is today, and do something about it, not avoid the parts they find unpleasant. Because stopping to be informed means stopping to act. Who wants that? Figure out.

By: Author Kristen Lamb

Author Kristen Lamb — Wed, 25 Jun 2014 16:04:57 +0000

In reply to Chaz DeSimone. GREAT TO MEET YOU! ((HUGS))

By: Chaz DeSimone

Chaz DeSimone — Tue, 24 Jun 2014 13:59:44 +0000

Kristen, I saw you on Susie’s blog (literally, in the photo of her friends). I love your T shirt! Especially since chicks go with lambs, right? (Why aren’t there any lamb Peeps? There oughtta be.) One of my AmperArt pieces featured Peeps–check out http://amperart.com/20-bunnies-chicks/
(Here I’ll be as shameless as Susie: Please ask all your ampersand fans to subscribe to AmperArt.com. Thx.)

I like your blog, at least the article above. (I’ll read more; I’ve subscribed.) Enlightening, entertaining and good strong opinions. I like your witty caption under the photo, “…The person ‘tried.’ “

By: No Wimps Allowed | cheryelhutton

No Wimps Allowed | cheryelhutton — Tue, 17 Jun 2014 18:04:16 +0000

[…] Network Ninja, Kristen Lamb. Bravely, Ms. Lamb took us places the rest of us where afraid to go. The first was about Empathetic Correctness and how this new phenomenon could seriously hurt writers. The second was about Diversity, and just […]

By: Gerri

Gerri — Tue, 10 Jun 2014 14:24:32 +0000

I try to include a social issue in all my stories. If something is hard for me, there is someone out there struggling, too. I LOVE your blog, Kristen. To this one I yell, “Amen!”

By: Bae Fox, Writer

Bae Fox, Writer — Tue, 10 Jun 2014 06:38:27 +0000

Both EC and PC drive me crazy. Because neither is really real. We’re human…flawed, sometimes nasty, sometimes nice, beings. To mandate the sanitization of our species’ existence is…absurd. But that’s what we’re doing. Yes, should we all strive, individually, to better ourselves and develop the barbarian within a bit? Absolutely. So I suppose what bothers me is the social mandate, the mob mentality which drives us all to present what is not necessarily more than skin deep. If you’re a smart racist these days you don’t wear your star on your sleeve, you just let the hatred burble away down deep until it explodes in tragedy. All the social mandates in the world can’t change a soul. But we haven’t learned that yet I think. Very very worrisome. If free expression is stamped out it will be with the best of intentions, me thinks.

By: writingsandstuff

writingsandstuff — Sat, 07 Jun 2014 15:16:42 +0000

I love this post :O
it is painfully true how soft recent generations have become, how we expect everything to be handed to us and how we hate any kind of discomfort. How do people expect to grow when nothing challenges them?