Heh. Can I pass that on to a friend of mine, Deb? She's devastated by a bad Kirkus review at the moment.

Betsy, you bet. Also, point her at Katharine Weber's amazon page for "The Little WOmen" - that PW review is a personal hate letter and it sat up there for three months prior to the book's release, with nothing other than that to go by.

Those who can, write/act/do, those who can't...

critique for a living. Critics have an inordinate amount of power, and they often wield it for maximum carnage. One never forgets a bad review, and one bad one can taint a hundred good ones. I don't know why, it just seems to be human nature. But often enough, a bad review does come from envy and inability to perform, so take that for what it's worth.

A very sensory poem, Teppy, my favorite kind. Congratulations on having it recognised!

Those who can, write/act/do, those who can't... critique for a living.

Ahem. Elvis Mitchell. Pauline Kael. Wossname Agee.

Some critics shine a bright light into the recesses of your cranium.

one bad one can taint a hundred good ones.

Whenever somehting like this happens, my mom likes to say that "it's against the 'evil eye'".

I have no idea if such an expression or a similar one exists in English. It's a word-to-word translation from Hebrew, where "the evil eye" is some sort of superstition, created by jealousy of other people, and a person should better have one bad thing in the pool of good ones in order to divert it. Like making one silly mistake in an exam, for example.

Not much of a comfort, I'm afraid.

Evil Eye is pretty much a global concept, sweetie.

Some critics shine a bright light into the recesses of your cranium.

Yes, but I don't think Bev was saying all critics were failed writers; just that a lot of would-be writers who suck at it themselves turn to crit as an outlet. And I agree. For every Pauline Kael, there's a Roger Ebert: he writes very nice crit, but what, precisely, is his screenwriting cred?

Oh, I didn't mean ALL critics, of course! No. Some critics are even very good writers, and thus vulnerable to critics themselves. Not so much actors, though, but I digress. No I meant more the vicious ones who take a writer and/or his/her work apart with an unholy, spoiling glee, purely for the pleasure of it, knowing full well how long unkind reviews stay with a writer. Not very nice.

But fair critics, even and especially ones who may not like or be kind to work that isn't adequate, those we need. I have even seen reviews that mitigate what might seem unduly severe criticism with, "this isn't my favorite genre," so any harshness can be attributed to that. But critics, and there are some, who are mean just to be mean, and because they enjoy that power, are out there.

Howsabout that for a crosspost?

Evil Eye is pretty much a global concept

Heh. In Israel, only Sepharadi people use it, no Ashkenazi ones, so I had no idea.

Nice crosspost, Deb!