Wow, it just
keeps getting better:
Quote:
Posted on Jun 1, 2009 2:42 PM PDT
Dr Lilith says:
PERSONAL RESPONSE FROM THE AUTHOR:
I think my assistant guided you to my website statement about this but I also wanted to respond personally.
1) As I said on the panel, I grew up on very poor on an Indian reservation and had no access to the current technology of the 60s and 70s. And as much as people like to believe that everybody today has access to current technology, it's not true. There will still be plenty of people, especially poor minority kids, who will, no matter how much money they save, ever have a Kindle or any other kind of electronic book technology. And I worry that those poor kids will miss out on educational opportunities because they don't have access to the most current technology.
2) I told a dumb joke about wanting to hit somebody. My website makes my intentions and apologies clear. But, in the future, I will say other outrageous and potentially offensive things. It's my job to do that. I'm a writer and political activist. Democracy doesn't thrive on aggreement; it's thrives on dissent and satire and disagreement.
3) I have made my poetry books available on Kindle to prove a point. When I last checked, I have sold seven copies in total. Heavy profits. Only certain kinds of books will find success in electronic form and I worry that publishers will focus too much attention on those books, and ignore, in even greater ways than they already do, the smaller and stranger and less commercial books out there. That said, I have sold the electronic rights to my latest novel. I had to sell them. I, a lone individual, had to buckle to a corporation. Whether you are a Democrat or Republican, you should feel angry that I couldn't win a battle against a corporation.
4) Bookstores suffer because of electronic book sales. If EBooks do eventualy dominate the publication market, then dozens of independent bookstores will go out of business. As much as corporate farming is killing the family farm, corporate EBook publishing will kill the small bookstore.
5) What happens to the electronic waste created by Ebooks? We're already dumping epic amounts of toxic electronic garbage in Third World countries. EBooks will only add to that mess.
6) I am sorry you won't read any more of my books, but if you indeed read my stuff before, then you know that my work is about the pain caused by racial and class injustice. And while I could very well be wrong about the Kindle and its kind, I remain greatly worried about the racial and class injustices associated with them. I hear very few people talking about this in the literary world. Or elsewhere. And your email of complaint about my words in no way considered the very real class and racial (and yes, gender) injustices inherent in any capitalistic endeavor. I am simply, as a writer, trying to make people aware of the potential problems. You have every right to be offended, but I would hope you also take another look at the implications of electronic book technology.
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Dear Mr. Alexie,
Please climb down off your cross. We need the wood.