Firestone was taken out of the public school by McCann to be homeschooled. When McCann left the family, Firestone did not return to school but instead took up the reins of mothering her five siblings.
McCann told the press that she tried to keep in contact with her children but was prevented from doing so by Firestone's stepfather. McCann also stated that she felt her life was in danger by Firestone's stepfather. My feeling is that even if it is true, you don't leave your six kids with someone who you think is physically violent.
ABC news also reported that due to the many offers of help from viewers, the Catholic Charities of Atlanta has agreed to handle all donations: Readers can go to their website at Catholic Charities of Atlanta to get more information on how to help, or call them at 404-881-6571.
See also Post Gazette for more on this story.
I get that maybe she felt she was in an abusive situation. Stuff like that happens, unfortunately.
I just don’t understand why she saved her own ass and left the kids. That I don’t get at all. If she was so afraid for her life, how could she leave her kids alone with this dangerous guy?
I truly feel sorry for those children.
If she felt she was in danger, I can understand the need to leave.
But not taking her kids with her? That I cannot understand. Nor do I want to. I’d never abandon my kids.
“Published” by PublishAmerica? That’s hardly “successful.”
What a disgusting woman.
I support any woman who leaves an abusive relationship-she SHOULD leave.
But to leave her children in the hands of an abuser?
PROTECTING your children should come first.
I’m disguted.
She not only left the children, but she apparently took no steps to try and get them back after seven years?
I can’t imagine. This defies logic. Maybe the kids were better off without her. Just because she says he was abusive doesn’t mean he actually was.
This story really hit hard. Maybe because I have five kids and can’t imagine walking out. I don’t believe, based on the articles I’ve read, that this woman was abused. I’ve known and worked with abused women and sexually abused women and I can’t believe that someone who was fearful of her life could say, “”I am proud that when I was [feeling] rather unhappy and unfulfilled with my life I had the courage to pick myself up and successfully relocate myself to a new country,” she said.”
And leave her children?
Another thing that hits me is that she took her daughter out of school to babysit her siblings, then confided in her daughter about affairs she was having. What 14 year old needs that kind of pressure on her?
Then to leave them and let them think she was dead? For seven years? No contact, no word, just going around flitting through your new life? The woman is a sociopath. A sociopath is someone who has no empathy for other people, can not relate to them or understand their feelings. Did she think once about her 14 year old basically becoming a mother at the age of 14? Or her 3 year old growing up without a mother and not know what happened to her?
I think what she did is wrong, assuming the press reports are at all accurate. But I buy and read fiction by people who have done as bad or worse. Not that WCP is a place I shop which makes it rather moot for me….
There’s always a lot we’re not told by the press in stories like this, not on purpose but simply because they don’t know it either. I’m not going to pass judgment. I simply feel sad for all the people in this situation, and hope they all find ways to heal. Thanks for the address for donations, Jane.
Why is this woman’s private life being picked over by the romance blogs? I’m sure there’s a lot more to both sides of this story than the reporting suggests, and guess what? It’s none of our business.
Are we going to examine every divorce, every infidelity, every family dysfunctionality in an author’s life now, just because they write romance novels?
Unless this woman’s behaviour directly affects her writing or her business dealings in some way, I believe she deserves the same privacy you or I would expect. No one’s life stands up to this kind of scrutiny, and making snap psychological assessments based on the barest sketch of the situation is uncalled for.
Why is this woman’s private life being picked over by the romance blogs?
My question is why did ABC news run this story? It’s not like McCann is a celebrity and would be known to the mainstream press. I’m wondering if it was some local interest story and it just happened to be a Whiskey Creek author. But still. And I guess the story was first published in England a month or so ago. Strange. I mean, I can see why the blogs have picked it up (b/c of the Whiskey Creek association), but there must be thousands upon thousands of people who do stuff that would garner the disapproval and/or sympathy of others, stories that would keep newspapers from doing anything else but writing up various tales like this one.
Robin, yes, that Post-Gazette article showed up in my “romance” news feed a month ago; I thought it was clearly a local interest/gossip piece. I don’t know why the interest continues; it doesn’t seem to have anything to do with anything. Most women who vanish don’t receive any press attention. Perhaps the interest lies in the novelty of her turning up again. Perhaps someone involved wants the publicity. Perhaps a bad mother story is always newsworthy. Whatever else, I’m sure part of it’s tabloid ratings-chasing.
“Why is this woman’s private life being picked over by the romance blogs? ”
Well Ann, the woman put her sob story out there. She talked to the press. clearly, SHE isn’t worry about her privacy. Guess what? We have a right to talk about it.
Just like you have the right to scold us for talking about it.
How is responding to reporters turning up at your door in response to an American news story, ‘putting the sob story out’? Her only public reference to her history prior to that was in the FAR article: “When I was feeling rather unhappy and unfulfilled with my life, I had the courage to pick myself up and successfully relocate myself to a new country.”
I don’t think that means she wants her marriage picked over, her fitness as a mother judged by complete strangers, or psychological judgement passed.
Her history, her marriage and her children are nothing to do with us or her writing. She’s not even a famous author.
The first time I saw this being held up so blog readers could slam this woman, I felt sick to my gut. Any of us could be subjected to this at any time, and your private live might be a shining beacon of perfect practice and moral rectitude, but mine isn’t, and I bet a lot of my fellow authors would be in the same position.
Demonstrate to me how this is Romancelandia’s business, and then I might agree with you. Otherwise, it looks like nothing more than prurience.
The daughter says “the stories of mistreatment are only more of her mother’s fiction” according to Pickled Cupid. How many of you can testify just how differently two siblings in a family can remember events within it, and how many spouses know about abuse that the children are unaware of? I can tell you from personal experience, one child will have very different recollections of parental abuse than another, and it’s also true that when you are dependent on one parent, you will tend to support their version of events or their morality, over the one you are not dependent on. It’s not lying - it’s survival.
We don’t know the facts, we’re not entitled to the facts, and this is a private tragedy. Give money to the kids if you feel moved, but don’t judge the mother until you know everything that went on. Which you can’t because you’re not her.
I don’t think the question is about our right to talk about it. Ann was asking why, and it was the first thing I thought, too. I mean, yes, she talked to the press, but I suppose if I felt that my private life were being misreported or put in a bad light, I’d try to defend myself, too. Also, one of the comments struck me. Why is there no mention of the father who allowed the eldest daughter to stop her schooling so she can take care of her siblings? We all assume that parents have an innate, selfless love for their children and make the best decisions for them, but in reality this doesn’t always happen.
Ah, simultaneous post. Snap!
@Kat & @Ann Sommerville: Since I was the one who posted it, the scolding should be directed at me and no one else. So should I have posted it? I thought it was relevant because it was about a romance author and since it had been reported at ABC was considered a mainstream article and that readers might be interested in helping out this family who have suffered quite a bit. Is it too gossipy? Possibly.
And yes, I agree that the father appears to be a douchebag as well.
This only goes to prove you don’t need to know a darn thing about love to have a romance novel published. You do need to know a thing or two about love to get the readers I know to love that novel, however.
The fact of the matter is, authors are public figures in a way. There is a modicum of celebrity that comes from putting your words and ideas out there for the world to see. Why should authors be treated any differently than actors or musicians? We’re all in the same business. Not that I want my private life picked over, but that’s one reason why I keep pretty silent about my life outside of writing.
The question I ask is this: how did this story even get out there? This woman is with a small press. She’s not well known…who called ABC and said, “Hey, here’s a story you want to put on your news wire?” And except for the irony of a romance writer abandoning her children (when so many of us write about love and children as the romantic ideal) why did ABC find this newsworthy?
I have no answers…just questions. Apparently, this was a slow news cycle if it actually got out there.
@JulieLeto: I have an article that I haven’t posted yet about the author biography and how so many romance authors talk in their author biography at the end of the book how happy they are in their marriage.
You never see a romance author’s bio say “divorced and loving it” so I suppose it is a bit hypocritical of me to post this since I’m always arguing that you need to measure a book by its contents and not the author.
Then again, I wouldn’t want to contribute to this author’s pocketbook either. Am conflicted.
I think a lot of the media outlets who first picked they story up didn’t quite realise the difference between Harlequin and WCP/PA
When you are a writer, you are a public figure. When you say things, like Deborah MacGillivray did, or Victoria Laurie, or do something like this woman, you should expect to be scrutinized.
What makes a public figure? Anyone who makes their way in the public domain. Writing and publishing books to be sold places you dead square and center field. If you don’t like it, stand to one side, let others who get the big picture have a chance. Does that mean that anyone has the right to pick apart your life?
For decency’s sake no, but this is the world of the internet, of post ‘Diana’ and where a picture sells for an ungodly amount if its the right picture of the right star with the wrong cellulite. And no one is too small. Town council members rip apart each other on the internet. Sometimes its cloaked as gossip, whispered around tables at conferences under the guise of a rumors. Other times it finds its way into print. However it gets there, the fervor, whether real or imagined finds its own legs.
As a writer you take risks. You can’t want sales, paste your picture on a website and blog then whine when the general public takes interest in your non-writing life. It’s unrealistic to try and personalize with your readers, then draw an imaginary line across the internet.
You can insulate. Keep pictures of your kids off the internet. Don’t mention their names, their ages, don’t mention your personal life at all. If you don’t want people to know your private side, use a pen name. Don’t blog. That may work or it may not. You can control press access, but be prepared should that line be crossed.
In the end, be true to yourself, your character and live an honest existence. When you don’t lie or cheat, when you tell the truth and treat others decently then you will always have a pillar to stand on and you won’t have to remember what you said.
Jane, I didn’t mean to sound scolding! I suppose I understand the blog-worthiness of the topic since it was in the mainstream media, but I’m a bit puzzled at the extra commentary that has nothing to do with her writing. I’m slightly uncomfortable about it because there have been huge brouhahas on the blogs about authors who expose too much of their private lives and how we as readers really don’t want to know. But here we have someone who probably didn’t instigate the publicity, who doesn’t seem to want it, yet we’re still blogging/reading about it on blogs. So I’m puzzled as to why, other than yeah, it’s gossipy–not that I mind a bit of gossip, but it’s the assumptions based on an article that’s quite vague on details that rubs me the wrong way.
Julie, for me, musicians and actors and writers who actively expose their private lives are one thing. But people who don’t use those details to advance or enhance their careers, in my opinion, should be allowed some privacy (laws may disgree, though). And in my opinion, the ABC article wasn’t about a writer. It was about a family dispute, one of whose members happens to write romance.
That’s honourable of you to say, but I’m not scolding, and in fact, a lot of people are picking over this. I don’t think you should have posted it, but the desire to support the kids is worthy. But I’m more concerned about the pile-on with the harsh judgments and the easy denouncements. Your post didn’t contain those, but some of the comments have. If we’re going to get indignant about things, why not save it for actual misdoing within the Romance community?
Exactly.
In addition to my earlier comments - SM opened herself to the internet and the public realm. She gave an interview with Fallen Angel Reviews. http://fallenangelreviews.com/Interviews/2006/Dec06-LindaL-SandeeMcCann.htm . Plugged her website (since taken down) and her author board at Coffee time (also gone at the moment). She answered personal questions.
You can’t crave the spotlight, then dance to one side when it blinds. Be honest, be truthful and most crucial, be careful on the internet, with the press. Authors are public figures no matter what you write. Pay attention to your public image.
Then again, you can not give a darn and solve the problem for everyone involved.
The right to privacy is considered to be an issue of huge debate. It’s the basis, of course, for the Roe v. Wade decision. Some constitutional experts believe that the right to privacy is written into the constitution via the Amendments given other provisions. Other constitutional experts argue that because there is no explicit right to privacy that it is not a fundamental right.
This story has nothing to do with the Romance community. It’s been picked up because of her daughter speaking to the press. The mother happens to write romance - it’s not the reason she left her family, or anything else.
So basically, the very act of putting our work out for the readers, allows the readers to pick us over like vultures? No, it really doesn’t. Unless McCann’s behaviour affects her readers, or her fellow authors, or her publishers, then it’s not Romanceland’s affair. If she wrote an autobiography, or made a big deal of the fact she had remarried after an abusive marriage, then there might be some excuse. Nothing of what I’ve read of her statements says she’s ‘craving’ anything but a fresh start.
I’m telling you flat - the fact I mention in my bio that I’m married, doesn’t give you the right to know for how long or to whom. It doesn’t give you the right to know how many children I have, or don’t have, or for what reason. It doesn’t give you the right to seek out my siblings and get personal histories from them.
That’s National Enquirer logic. We should be above that.
@Ann Somerville: Why mention in your bio that you are married. What does that have to do with your ability to write books? If you blog or talk about your family, doesn’t that invite speculation? As for using National Enquirer logic, I’ll say that I don’t know if I am above that. I certainly read the Enquirer online from time to time. For some reason, I feel like if the Enquirer had been covering the presidency this past 8 years, we might not be in the situation we are in.
I really dislike the “we should be above that” line. As if we are of such an elevated plane that certain discussions should not take place. That sounds suspiciously like what I was arguing against in Fan Fiction thread.
Jane, to veer slightly OT, there was a recent ruling (or maybe just a statement? Can’t recall) from a judge (here in Australia) about how the right to privacy is no longer clear cut because we’ve been giving away our privacy in small increments over a period of time (I presume he was talking mostly about what info we provide online). I suppose it goes to what Tell me no lies and Ann are debating–at what point have you given so much information about yourself that other parts of your life are considered fair game?
@Kat: The position of an individual as a “public figure” is important for defamation cases. The rulings have been consistent that you can be a public figure in one area (i.e, being a lawyer or prominent figure in your profession) but you might not be a public figure for defamation purposes.
But I think that the right to privacy has been eroded and certainly if you put something out there on the internet, it might be read as waiving your right to privacy on a certain issue.
Not following the logic. The fanfiction post was a legitimate subject for Romanceland’s residents to talk about. My argument here is that this is not. If you want to make a general post about whether authors should mention their marital state, or where our right to privacy ends or begins, using this case as an example then that would also be relevant (and a conversation I’d love to read.)
But I’m still at a loss to know why the fact this woman has a minor career as a virtually self-pubbed/small pubbed romance writer, means Romanceland should (a) have an interest and (b) sit in judgement. How does what she writes have the least to do with the dysfunctionality of her family, and how does that dysfunctionality concern us?
I’m missing something, because it honestly looks to me like nothing more than gossip peddling of private, unimportant matters. And that, truly, I did think DA was above.
You can call it the National Enquirer mentality if you like. You can insult the practice if it helps you put a handle on it. As a writer, you are a public figure, whether you like it or not. As a public figure, it is your responsibility to guard your privacy.
It has been said that a gauge of morality is that if what you are doing appeared tomorrow on the front page of the paper, would you be ashamed? If the answer is yes, you should think again.
Public figures take risks. Winona Ryder took a risk shoplifting. She is a public figure but that was her personal life. You can turn this around, say it has to do with laws broken, but the scrutiny didn’t stop there. You can point to the fact that she is a well known public figure, while romance authors are not of the same stature, but I disagree. Nora Roberts may sell alot of books (and she’s very good), but at the bookstore, shelves are filled without deference to sales. The consumer doesn’t know the difference beyond the obvious.
@Ann Somerville: Kirsten Saell was arguing that Dear Author should be above allowing personal attacks from one commenter to another. I believe you were the topic of much discussion in that thread.
The whole call for ‘DA is above this sort of thing’ seems to be most often trotted out for those who disagree with something that is occurring on the blog, for not always well articulated reasons.
DA is a blog run by a bunch of readers regarding romance. The most that we strive for is transparency and honesty in our opinions. We aren’t, and do not want to be, above anyone else. (at least I don’t. I suppose I can’t speak for everyone else).
Jane, here’s the news item. It wasn’t a ruling, just a statement. He cites mobile phones, which I thought was interesting. And I do wonder about the notion of what is “self-evidently” private. Clearly, there’s much disagreement about that.
As for this particular case, I suppose that aside from the judgments we’re making that has nothing do with books, I’m mostly uncomfortable because this wasn’t an issue that the author set out to make public, so it’s more a question of whether or not we as readers are putting an author in an awkward position where, if she’d revealed this on her own we’d have had some harsh things to say, yet because she’s not saying much in her defence now (after someone else brought it to light), we feel entitled to make equally harsh speculations.
So I guess that posting this a few days ago was also… what? Oh yes,none of our business.
Thanks, but I don’t think I’m likely to forget what she said, considering she repeated her personal attacks over at Karen’s blog (guess DA is considered a politer place to her than there.)
I believe you are conflating two different arguments. People can be completely polite in discussing Ms McCann here, and I would still consider it none of their business and not appropriate to a romance discussion, even with DA’s extremely broad umbrella. If, say, someone had some juicy gossip about Chantal above, would you post about it because she’s a romance reader? If someone heard you were getting divorced, would that be appropriate? Was it appropriate to discuss Karen’s fertility on another blog? Was that blog entitled to do, as it continues to do, post as much personal information about you as the owner could scrape together from contacts and the internet, and draw that information together with your real name and your online name?
There are places we, as a community, think it’s inappropriate to go. I believe this is one of them, and you disagree. Fair enough. It’s your blog, of course you can post what you like. This one just makes me squirm, and wonder where the intrusion in an author’s life ends.
Tell me no Lies, I’m not insulting you. However, it’s extremely disturbing that you assume a natural desire for privacy is because we have something sinister to hide. The fact we have families and day jobs is more than enough reason to keep most of our lives from scrutiny, even we live dull and blameless ones. You sound like a certain real author excoriating me for using a pseudonym. Is that because I’m secretly a shoplifter?
You say it’s our ‘responsibility’. So basically, if someone gets through the fence we erect, it’s our fault? What about the responsibility of those who come by private information? If I found Robin’s tax return in a trash can, would I have the right to post it here because she’s a romance blogger? What about Jane’s medical records? What about yours? Where do we draw the line, precisely? Or do you think someone offering goods for sale, sells their personal freedoms as well?
If you’re so comfortable with the invasion of authors’ privacy, then I presume you would be happy to have your life laid bare in the same fashion. After all, you’ve posted on a blog, that makes you a public figure by your logic.
I consider the post as something worthy of discussion, because if the facts are as we’ve read, then the woman is guilty of wrong-doing. Abandoning children is always going to be of concern to quite a few people.
It’s something that I’d consider far more important than most issues discussed in romance land. More important plagiarism, more important than queries, or ebook readers, or piracy, or most other things. The welfare of a child should always be worthy of discussion and it’s a child’s welfare that makes this ‘newsworthy’
If the facts aren’t as we’ve been told them, then I’ll make my apologies to the author.
azteclady: Not sure if that was for me specifically (since I commented on your post at Karen’s). But actually, yes. My interest in the article you quoted was from a general social welfare perspective, and I did point out that we couldn’t really know what was going on in the father’s mind. Look, that article had other things besides the human interest aspect–the policy of safe harbour. The article cited in this post is mostly human interest, and I don’t think the journalist made much of an attempt to write about any social issues beyond this specific case–nothing wrong with that, I just don’t think it gives much fodder for discussion beyond the gossip/personal judgment. Although we’re now also talking about privacy, so I guess I’m wrong…
Okay, I think this is the original story (http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/woman/real_life/article1596500.ece). Sorry, but I don’t know how to make the link look all nice without the neat little buttons we used to have. Anyway, the original story was published in The Sun, a British tabloid. Clearly it was being sold as a scandal piece — the scandal to this family of six kids abandoned by their mother, etc., and it had that extra flair because McCann had taken up residence in England. I suspect that McCann’s American roots made the story extra-irresistible to The Sun.
Now, as for Jane posting the story, I don’t think she’s sunk to any unacceptable level in doing so. It’s public information, and that ABC news link even made it look like the story made it to Good Morning America (is that right?). I know there was another story on the blog a while ago about an author (non-Romance) who was also a professor and had some unusual relationship with a wife and mistress (does anyone remember the story I’m talking about?). We’ve talked about David Foster Wallace’s depression and his writing. I think these conversations happen. I remember an article once upon a time about several female Romance authors who had been the victims of violence from their husbands, some of them even being murdered. I watch Dateline and 48 Hours, and I could see this kind of story being featured on either of those programs.
I’m not particularly disturbed by the reference here to the McCann story. What is quite startling, though, is that there are 812 comments on the ABC website! I only scrolled through the first few pages, and the comments almost unanimously seem to slam McCann. That automatic blame of her is sort of sad, especially since if we were to encounter this at the beginning of a Romance novel, we’d likely be reading to find out that the story was untrue as told (it reminds me a bit of that Susan Mallery novel where the daughter runs away and the parents think she rejected them because a message she left never reached them).
Also, I think we need to be VERY careful not to connect the story in and of itself to McCann’s career as a WP author. I don’t think anyone here has done that, but when I read Ann and Kat’s comments, I think that’s the link that is most problematic for me — the question of HOW this is relevant within the Romance community. Basically it isn’t, except in the sense that McCann is a WP author. I don’t think Jane did anything wrong in posting it, but it does bring up this strange conundrum regarding the personal information authors do provide about themselves.
I remember when I first started reading the genre how struck I was by the way so many author bios made a point of talking about how they had their very own HEA, and that if they weren’t married they were “still looking for their HEA,” and it kind of skeeved me out, because I kept thinking it promoted this bizarre sense of personal expectation, especially in a society with a higher than 50% divorce rate. Also, so many readers posting seemed to feel similarly inclined to reference their “perfect” relationships with their very own “heroes.”
This situation with McCann is different, because it’s more of a Dateline type story in which the person happens to be a WP author. I think the validity of posting it question can go either way. At the very least, though, it’s provided an opportunity to talk about this boundary between the personal life of authors and their work. And one thing I do wonder with these stories is if they involved men, would the reaction of readers (and reporters) be the same? One thing there seems to be within the Romance community and society as a whole is this really strong idea of what a “mother” should and shouldn’t do, and certainly McCann has been portrayed as unnatural in a certain sense, which is interesting, considering that’s a trope at issue in Romance, too.
Robin, I noticed the 800+ comments, too, and how most of them were castigating the mother. That’s why the comment questioning the father’s decisions struck me.
That’s what I meant by “why”. I probably wouldn’t ask this question on a blog that posts personal items as well as reviews on a regular basis, but because DA mostly stays off the personal, I suppose I’ve put my own expectations on what sorts of things I expect to read here (which is my issue, not the DA posters’). Like I said before, I can see the blog-worthiness of the article. It just made me a bit uncomfortable and I hope my previous comments have managed to articulate why. I guess if Jane had ended the post with some general discussion points about authors and their privacy, or what info they provide to the world at large, it wouldn’t have felt as iffy. But since the comments have naturally evolved that way, I suppose that’s also a good thing.
Not at all Ann. I think you have every right to use a pen name. Guard your privacy! Be vigilant at all times. My point is that you are public figures and as such, people will ask, people will post. You can’t stop it, but you can minimize it. You should minimize it if you want to protect yourself. I am not comfortable with the invasion of an author’s privacy, but it is something that can happen. To think otherwise is naive.
That is the reason for my advice, which you will note on a closer read of my earlier posts, but I will repeat it again for clarity. Be careful what you do.
Your last comment/veiled threat is a scare tactic. The real question you should ask yourself is if there is anything you are afraid people will find? Whatever the answer is, be on your guard. It could happen. As you can see through this example, it does.
Kat, what I meant is that aside from the fact that the mother is being published by WCP and PA, it’s a story about a parent abandoning his/her children.
And not one or two kids–seven in this case, nine in the other case. In both cases, I feel for the children, and can’t spare too much pity for the parent.
I won’t apologize for feeling that way either.
@Kat: The issue of privacy never even occurred to me Kat. Honestly, I read the article that was sent to me, was appalled, and posted it. Was that inappropriate for this blog? Perhaps it was.
Oh puhlease.
Define people. Anonymous strangers like you, are entitled to exactly nothing, and if you were to find out the smallest detail about me beyond what I post myself, then I would be revolted, and yes, scared, because I’ve been stalked and I know how stalkers use private information to increase terror.
To friends, I am an open book. The question *you* need to ask - are you a friend of mine? If not, then you don’t have any claim to the smallest piece of me beyond my writing. My stories and my blogs are what the public is permitted to have, and all they’re entitled to. Beyond that, you’re basically stealing.
@Ann Somerville: what’s with the inflamed rhetoric? Stealing? Why would you accuse someone (even a rhetorical one) of a criminal act by talking about information you perceive to be private. Garbage in the US has been considered to lack any indicia of privacy so your previous example is not a useable one in a legal sense.
Unfortunately public figures are not afforded the same protections as private individuals and calling people thieves won’t actually change that.
I do think that the US Constitution affords some fundamental rights to privacy, but it’s also clear that by putting yourself out there to benefit from the public, the law will also provide you less protection for supposed invasions of privacy.
Simple - if I didn’t give it freely, they obtained it illegitimately, and more important, made it public illegitimately. I do feel very strongly that information received through unauthorised channels and posted without consent is theft - theft of someone’s privacy without consent. Please don’t go all lawyerly on me about that not being an actual crime. If someone takes from me what I highly value - whether it’s my reputation or my privacy - without my consent, then you bet I consider that stealing. Unlike my purse, no one can restore privacy and reputation once taken awy either, so it’s worse than property theft.
Actually, in the UK, and I believe in Australia, taking stuff out of garbage is legally considered theft. In Australia and the UK, publishing such material without consent is subject to the test of public interest, and *you*, the person posting it, is under the onus of proving it is, not me, the owner, of proving that it’s not.
You seem to think authors shouldn’t be the least concerned about what private information is posted about them or how it’s obtained. Again, because of my personal experiences, I beg to differ. And considering how important it is, you can hardly expect people to be dispassionate about it.
Ann, I don’t read your books and have no interest in your personal life. If you don’t want to head my advice, consider Jane’s. To summarize public figures are open to more scrutiny and commentary. Authors are public figures.
As for McCann, if I believe her and she abandoned kids to an abusive husband, that’s despicable. If I don’t believe her and she ran off with her boyfriend, that’s despicable.
azteclady, no reason you should apologise at all. I understand where the outrage comes from.
Jane, whether it’s appropriate or not is really for you to say. I think it’s a very different sort of post that we’d normally see here, so I suppose I read it in the context of what I’d usually expect to find here. Now I’m wondering why I felt the need to question this post and not the others that Robin mentioned. Maybe it’s the tabloid feel of the story. Maybe I’m just distracting myself from getting any work done. Not really sure.
I think it is interesting how far authors choose to open themselves, Politics, religion, sexual fantasies, family? A touch of personal connection (I am a mother too) helps make a sales but the next thing you know you have a stalker… or a reporter.
I guess if Jane had ended the post with some general discussion points about authors and their privacy, or what info they provide to the world at large, it wouldn’t have felt as iffy. But since the comments have naturally evolved that way, I suppose that’s also a good thing.
I don’t know if that would have occurred to me immediately, Kat, although now it seems clear. Part of it for me is that I didn’t have any personal thoughts about boycotting the author or whatever, so I wasn’t following the ‘condemn the mother’ aspect in my own head. It did strike me as interesting, and it wasn’t private info emailed, and it’s not as if Jane wrote any kind of diatribe against McCann. Again, I think that posting it could have gone either way.
As for why it bothered you more than other stories, those questions are always interesting to ask, IMO (I know I’m constantly in conflict around why some things bother and others don’t so much). I was struck, for example, by the wincing at Jane’s piece on the AAR/DIK issue, when I thought the piece was gentler and less personal than others she has done. I wondered whether it was because more people reading the site feel they *know* Laurie and therefore feel a stronger personal connection to anything critical written about her. The more identification, the more discomfort, maybe?
The irony, here, of course, is that if this had been posted on a general interest blog, the author privacy issue would likely not have come up, because the prism through which we’d be looking at the story would be different, IMO. I *do* see the privacy issues here, but I also believe that it was the daughter here who exposed the mother to scrutiny, and she has a story to tell, too, and it’s a sad story, whether or not it’s accurate, the kind of story that has become tied to community outreach, which is probably a good thing, since these kids are obviously stuck in something not good. That’s the story that clearly so many commenters at ABC seem to be focused on, despite the fact that ABC clearly took more pains than The Sun to provide McCann’s explanation.
I am with Ann in this.
Jane, this was a weird post to read on your site. It *is* gossipy because it has to do with an author’s personal life. This post invites judgment and feeds needless and useless speculation.
There is nothing in this post that adds to the conversation on the Romance genre, writing Romances, the publishing industry, the communities that surround the genre, etcetera - all reasons I enjoy reading your Web log. Now, if Ms. McCann had pulled an Edwards…well, I’d be interested in reading about that.
What we have learned is sad and disturbing. When I read that she had left her five children, I immediately thought of the man in Indiana who left all eight of his children at a hospital to be taken care of by Indiana’s Child Welfare Office.
I don’t condone her actions, but remember that sometimes all people can see is that they must get out of a bad situation. We cannot know how other people handle stresses. In cases like this the public only ever learns of the the repercussions and consequences of actions and decisions.
A question: Jane, do you think that you would publish news about Nora Roberts or Eloise James’ or any other well-regarded first/second-tier (in sales) author if it was revealed that they had made an equally regrettable decision? Would you open their lives to speculation on your Web log?
As for the question of privacy. I believe that every person is allowed to be private - unless they commit a crime or have signed away a part of their lives in a reality TV show.
From what I understand, authors do not sign a release statement for their entire lives when they sign a book contract. It does not follow that because a person is an author they are automatically a public person. Indeed, to expect a person to open their entire life for examination simply because their name is on a book is wrong.
P.S. I have never heard of this writer….has anyone who visits this Web log read any of her books?
Rebecca - yes, I absolutely think I would post something about Roberts or James that was featured on ABC. I remember posting something about the sale of Judith McNaught’s million dollar home once. I guess I’m just not as moral or good as you would like to think of me.
Regarding author bios:
I never take those seriously. I can imagine that having one’s own HEA is nice and probably sells books to the sentimental.
For me? Well, I’m glad you have an HEA. What I am more interested in is your writing bio.
Regarding everything else:
There are a lot of juicy topics exposed by this story and this post.
I don’t think questioning a decision about whether a post belongs on DA means anyone thinks you’re immoral or bad. I don’t, even though I disagree with your decision, and I see nothing in Rebecca’s post to indicate she does either.
For those of you who object to the sharing of this story here, had the author been the daughter, would it still be so offensive? How about if the story was positive? Or what about if the request for donations was in tandem with an author who had lost her home in a storm or did not have medical insurance for a sick husband (both of which have happened in the Romance community). In other words, is it the principle of posting information from the mainstream media that relates to an author’s private life, or is it the particular issues of this story?
“had the author been the daughter, would it still be so offensive?”
Yes. Unless the daughter shared it herself.
“what about if the request for donations was in tandem with an author who had lost her home in a storm or did not have medical insurance for a sick husband”
The difference in those cases is that there’s no factual dispute as in the McCann story. In that, we’ve got two basically irreconcilable versions of events - neither or which have the least thing to do with her authorship. The reporting of this story as I’ve seen it has invited condemnation of Ms McCann, and yet we don’t know the truth.
In a charity situation, if the medical expenses were mentioned without the author’s consent, that would be appalling.
“is it the principle of posting information from the mainstream media that relates to an author’s private life, or is it the particular issues of this story?”
Both. And as I said right at the start, I don’t think it belongs on DA because the hook isn’t real. All it would need would be McCann fictionalising her life story and selling it, or some way she had used her story in detail to promote herself, and that would be enough of a hook. I don’t see that here.
Raising money for the kids is great, and I applaud Jane for doing that. I think the value judgements should be left for those involved and those who know the facts.
@Ann Somerville: My point is that I am not as high minded as you would like for me to be or at least as it pertains to the running of the blog. I think that what this woman did to her family is appalling and her defenses weak. She is a romance author of a fairly well known epress and thus it seemed romance related.
Is it gossipy? Sure. Did I break any confidences? Absolutely not. It was a public piece on a mainstream media site.
I’ve blogged about plenty personal details including how much money authors bring in and that wasn’t met with any outcries of invasion of privacy. So these accusations of theft and personal degradation seem inconsistent in this case.
Not if she brought it up in the first place. (Also, just to clarify, it didn’t offend me. I was just uncomfortable since I didn’t think it belonged on DA, but like I said, maybe it’s me reading more into what DA is or is not. I acknowledge that.)
If it were positive, no, I probably wouldn’t have thought much of it. But then I think one should always be more careful of publishing negative stories than positive ones. Not that they shouldn’t be published–just that more care should be taken because they’re more easily misconstrued and the effects are more damaging.
In terms of helping out someone in need, to be honest, that’s not the overriding message I got from this post. Again, that may well be my fault as a reader. And in calling for donations to help people who are dealing with illness or natural disasters, those don’t incite judgment calls like the ABC article does.
So my answer is that in this case, there’s an element that has a negative impact on someone, and because of that I would think twice.
“My point is that I am not as high minded as you would like for me to be or at least as it pertains to the running of the blog.”
You’re upset because I think well of you? Okay - that sure makes a change :)
“I think that what this woman did to her family is appalling and her defenses weak.”
Um, there you go with the value judgements again. What if the woman is mentally ill, or was? What if the reporting has left out her defence in detail? What if the daughter is lying or has been misled?
We don’t know.
Look, there have been times in my life when it’s gone completely off the rails. If you asked me to defend myself decades on, I wouldn’t be able to do so coherently or strongly because it’s not something I can talk about in that way. (I’m not talking about criminality either.) Suddenly the press is at the door demanding answers, and all I can think is, “Shit! The whole world knows about this?” It’s the Lindy Chamberlain scenario, isn’t it? A woman doesn’t react as we expect, so we crucify her for her lack of feeling. But it doesn’t mean guilt, necessarily.
“She is a romance author of a fairly well known epress and thus it seemed romance related.”
I simply disagree, so let’s leave it there.
“Did I break any confidences? Absolutely not”
No, you didn’t and if I said anything which implied that, I apologise. The conversation veered off into issues of what is private, which were unrelated to this particular case. The privacy issue here is the particular invitation to discuss it, and so give people without the facts another chance to bash this woman.
“I’ve blogged about plenty personal details including how much money authors bring in and that wasn’t met with any outcries of invasion of privacy.”
Maybe because the facts are both public and indisputable? How much money Nora Robert’s is bringing in, is probably a public record if she’s part of a limited company. Whether she or her husband are sleeping around*, isn’t - and if you posted something like that, I think the outcries would be there. I hope so.
“So these accusations of theft and personal degradation seem inconsistent in this case.”
“accusations of theft” relate purely to how *I* feel about my personal information being disseminated without my consent. There is no specific accusation towards you of that.
“personal degradation” - well yes, I think there is that going on.
Anion = “What a disgusting woman.”
Chantal = I’m disguted.” [sic]
Julie Leto = “Maybe the kids were better off without her.”
Alison Brennan = “The woman is a sociopath.”
All based on a news report with disputed facts, and highly biased towards the daughter.
* Nora, if you’re reading this, you’re being used as a high-profile example, nothing more!
Obviously this isn’t a “need to know” kind of piece, nor is there an explicit ‘relevant to Romance genre’ connection. So I can see both sides. I don’t think this story presents the most compelling case for author privacy vis a vis sharing on a blog, but I do think it’s shocking and sad, no matter what the truth of the situation.
It’s interesting, though, because when you think about how the press covers the various hospitalizations, rehab stints, arrests, etc. of celebrities, how many people won’t go see a David Duchovny movie because he just came out of sex addiction rehab? Or won’t buy a Britney Spears CD because of her various issues with her kids? This whole meshing of the book and the author seems, in part, connected to the anxiety around posting this story. I don’t think posting the story creates that personalization, but I do think the personalization ups the perceived stakes.
@Ann Somerville: I actually could care less what you think of me Ann. We’ll just have to disagree on the entirety of this topic because yes I think any prson even if they are mentally ill is wrong to have abandoned her children. Parenting is a tough gig but a child is a defenseless being. I would judge anyone who engages in child cruelty negatively.
I think itbis pretty indisputable that the woman left her kids for 7 years.
“I think any prson even if they are mentally ill is wrong to have abandoned her children”
She left the kids with the father. That’s not ‘abandoning’ them to the fates. Men do this kind of thing all the time.
“I think itbis pretty indisputable that the woman left her kids for 7 years.”
So what? You don’t know why. That’s the unknown.
“I actually could care less what you think of me ”
Sorry you feel that way.
As for McCann, if I believe her and she abandoned kids to an abusive husband, that’s despicable. If I don’t believe her and she ran off with her boyfriend, that’s despicable.
What she said.
Jane, this was a weird post to read on your site. It *is* gossipy because it has to do with an author’s personal life. This post invites judgment and feeds needless and useless speculation
I think this is a perfect example of that ‘higher standard’ that DA is held to.
You should really should start posting actual gossipy stuff, that way your readers wont be as surprised, and you’ll avoid the cries of OH NOES, THE JA(Y)NES HAVE GONE NEGATIVE! LE GASP! (g)