We were going to put this as an addendum to our post, Author Hatred Growing at an Alarming Rate, but instead we thought we’d write about it in a separate post altogether. After sharing our views regarding the extreme hatred directed toward authors for the books they write, we were tipped off to a story about outright violence against one:
The article our blog reader mentions above is about an author who suffered violent attacks against her person because of a book she wrote:
Then, it goes on to say:
The local New Port Richey Patch also published an article about these incidents on April 2nd, and another news update today shows escalating forms of violence including a plastic bottle chemical bomb that exploded in her front yard on the evening of April 15th. Interestingly, this ‘bombing’ happened just a few hours after the Boston Marathon attacks had begun to fill media headlines. Kyrja’s stepdaughter Heather inhaled fumes from the explosion and is under medical treatment for damage to her respiratory tract.
Local police are currently investigating these incidents. Kyrja is offering a $200 reward for any information about the perpetrators of the shootings and the chemical bottle explosion. Tips leading to the arrest and conviction of whoever is behind the incidents can be emailed to Kyrja at and the police department can be called at . You can visit her to send along messages of support, or visit her book fan website at www.friends-of-rupert.webs.com.
Her Pagan children’s book, “Rupert’s Tales: The Wheel of the Year” follows the adventures of Rupert the Rabbit who discovers the different Pagan holidays. A short biography of Ms. Withers’ spiritual journey from a devout Roman Catholic to a practicing Pagan, and her inspiration for writing “Rupert Tales”, was .
Please stay tuned to PNC Florida and The Wild Hunt for developing updates to this story. Our thoughts and prayers are with Ms. Withers, her family, her neighbors and community.
This is frightening — to write a book and then be physically attacked for it. Hatred is a poison, indeed.
This isn’t an isolated incident either. Here’s another similar story shared with us by Goronwy:
I don’t know if you’ve read that something similar happened to Charlaine Harris:
A group of readers formed the “Annie Wilkes Brigade” and threatened the life of Charlaine Harris, author of Sookie Stackhouse, promising to destroy her and her career:
In a comment on our last post, Karig describes this kind of behavior perfectly:
Well, we have the phrases “road rage” and “nerd rage”; I guess in this case “book rage” would be appropriate for “‘That’s All’ Ash” above.
Carroll also has some apt descriptors for it:
Book-rage, reader-rage, review-rage, all would aptly apply. I still call it hate though.
Above, Karig is talking about That’s All Ash’s review that we featured on our previous post. In it, she takes out her anger from reading the author’s book on the author herself. Something that should never be done and yet happens all the time on GR. In the past, we’ve given numerous examples of hatred directed toward authors because of harmless books they’ve written. For example, in our post Bully Wank, we shared a few reviews that show just how unhinged readers can get over books:
Here’s one from our post, Bully Attacks This Week:
And here, we show Mahala threatening an author, saying she has a loaded gun:
But our classic example of author hatred can be shown quite concisely in our post, Authors, I Will Destroy You, where crazy Ridley threatens to “destroy” any author that approaches her:
There are many, many more examples. Too many to put into one blog post and unlike what the bullies believe, this kind of hatred toward people who write books is not harmless. We strongly beg to differ on that opinion. It’s not only unhealthy, it’s dangerous and potentially lethal. This book rage — this is the kind of hatred that leads to stalking and violence, violence like the kind directed toward authors such as Charlaine Harris and Kyrja Withers. This hatred runs rampant on GR and it’s irresponsible of Amazon to let it continue. If they don’t put a check on it sooner or later, it’s only a matter of time before an author is killed.
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This incident is from Fundamentalist fanatics. Who believe their right to believe what they want extends to the forced imposition of their beliefs on everyone else. The creeping incursion into the body politic by religion has been a threat to the democratic process since day one. Remember that the founders of this country were religious outcasts who left Europe because of their radical beliefs, yet they still had the wisdom to incorporate the separation of church and state into the constitution.
One of the greatest threats to our political system has been the creeping religious morals that are being imposed on us by religiously motivated legislation, especially the institutional misogyny legislation recently passed in bible belt states.
So in reality it is this religious Draconianism that accounts for this attack and not hatred for authors in general.
I’d like the live link to the ripley post so I can report her to twitter are making death threats as she did me when I stated the title of an upcoming book was “Suffer not a troll to live”
I find Ridley’s comment interesting. Like anyone really cares about her. And I would wager a bet with anyone that if they met Ridley in person, and she tried any of that online bullshit she does on GR, they would eat her alive. These people have these self-imposed images of themselves as being so much more important than they really are. Even Ann Somerville, who’s been ranting on Twitter all week about the Zimmerman trial. They don’t get that people really don’t care what they think or what they have to say.
I highly suggest to GR and Amazon to hire a team of psychologists to analyze their comments and their intentions. And then Amazon can have a “Looney Page” just for them.
LMAO! Can you imagine? That would be great!
A short time ago you posted about Jane Litte and the way she attacked an author by accusing the author of plagiarism without proof. In a recent post Jane is up to her manipulative ways again. She posted about a made for TV movie series airing this weekend, and mentioned the PR firm for this suggested she do an event or something with the DA readership. As if it all just happened out of the blue. The books the films are based on are by Debbie Macomber, and Jane fails to mention to her readership that Macomber’s PR firm is Simple Progress which is run by people closely associated to Jane. Like Mollie Smith, and Sarah Wendell of Smart Bitches blog. The reason I point this out is because Jane and Wendell think nothing of trashing new, helpless authors, but always promote established authors like Macomber in order to advance themselves. And if anyone points this out openly, they become blacklisted. They weave interesting webs that are more corrupt than government. And the blog readers never know what happens. Not to mention the bully tactics on new authors. http://dearauthor.com/misc/contestsgiveaways/giveaway-debbie-macombers-cedar-cove/
Oh, they will if they read this blog!
This is getting way out of hand. I don’t think that a single one of these nitwits has the guts to say any of this garbage to someones face. I’d love to see them step out of their protective digital bubble and say this stuff in person. What a bunch of gutless psychopaths for using social media to discriminate towards a minority by ganging up on unsuspecting people. And then they have the audacity to use something that was invented to promote a healthy exchange of ideas, as a tool to commit unprovoked acts of terrorism against a helpless segment of the populous.
They should be so proud of themselves. What brave, intelligent, benevolent beings they are. It must be such a terrible burden to be so ethically perfect all of the time. I bet these hate mongers can’t even get a good night’s sleep if they didn’t harass and destroy someone’s reputation for that day. These aren’t good people doing this. They are pretending to be good people in their communities, and despite what they say, it’s more than just their not so humble opinions, it’s cruelty in a most sadistic form. The Holy Terror, Angela Horn, Jane Little, Kat Kennedy, Wendy Darling, Lucy, Ridley, Adam Archer Pring, Zahara, Old Rocker, Guy, Rose, KarLynP, Mrs Joseph, Grimlock, Miranda, Susanna, Skyla, Thalia, Stefani, Amara, and Carla, you are your teams leaders, and you’re better than this. Please look in the closest mirror you can find for a five minutes, and then ponder the immense damage that you’ve done. You have hurt yourselves as much anyone else, so I urge you to all reflect peacefully as one human being to another. END THIS WAR OF WORDS NOW! You have the power to user in a new system that’s mutually beneficial for author and reviewer alike.
That’s right. They are gutless wonders and seem to have no other desire than to take out their own inadequacies on others. That’s why you’ll find that many of them are either wannabe writers or failed writers. They’re the true vipers of the book community.
Over the last few days the trolls have been attacking an author/reviewer named Betty Jay for plagiarizing her reviews. What I find interesting is that there are more than one Betty Jay on Goodreads, and Angela Horn went and shitlisted the WRONG one. Not only that, but ETA: soon had also shitlisted her (she has since deleted), in case anyone still had doubts about ETA and Angela being the same person.
Well Spotted Goronwy!
Horn/ETA:Soon just didn’t delete it from her shit list quick enough. Bahahaha! I was 99.9% sure that ETA: Soon was Angela Horns sock puppet, but now I’m 100% sure.
Horn might use a different name on her sock puppet account, but it is so obvious that it is the same person. Horn and Eta:Soon both moan in the same annoying manner. Horn is such a whinger. She is always whining about something. “I hate this author!” “I hate that author!” “That F#?@*!% author is a B*#@%!” “That SP author can’t write S%@#” “Moan – Whinge – Whine – Wah – Wah – Wahhhhhhhh!” UGH! She is the most negative person that I have ever come across in my life.
I remember someone posted a link on here to Horns Blog. (Aptly enough Horns called her blog something like “I am a whinging whiner.”) I followed the link and glanced through her blog. Each blog story was a rant about different self published authors. She moaned and cried her way through each and every blog post. Why is Horn is so full of negativity? Old misery guts! She should lighten up and stop taking everything so seriously. All that hating must be so exhausting. She comes across as very bitter. Do you reckon anyone has ever read one of Horns comments and thought “Um, I’d really like Ms. Horn as a friend. She seems like such a kind and caring person.” NOT!
The crazy thing is the way Horn accuses everyone who disagrees with her of being a sock puppet. While all along she is the one who is using a sock puppet account to attack authors and reviewers. Pffft! I guess Horn realizes just how nasty she is, but she doesn’t have the courage to stand by her own words. So she hides behind the sock puppet account, ETA:Soon. I understand that it is common for people to use a screen name on Goodreads etc. but it is wrong to use a screen name to hide behind and attack people. She has at least two accounts on GR and she uses both accounts to gang up and attack people. That is wrong on so many levels. If she is so sure that she is right then why lie and hide who she is?
These people hide behind their keyboards in the privacy of their homes. I can guarantee you that Ridley, and those like her would not be as brave in RL. But what is RL to these people anyway? Most seem to live in a made-up world and actually admit that their closest friends are those they have made online. I don’t know if that is creepy or just pathetic. Probably both.
A lot of them are disabled, like Ridley, ginmar, and Amazon Grace. They sit in wheelchairs all day and surf the net terrorizing people.
I think those people/bullies who rage over books and authors online must be the clear definition of what we call ”lifeless losers”. No other explanation is needed.