Content Warning

I was recently, let’s say, admonished by a reader to add a content warning to my book, Afterward. I thought seriously about this feedback, as I do most feedback (I will put as much time into considering feedback as someone took to provide it), and said no.

I had thought about this issue before, but even after hearing the details of this reader’s experience, and going through similar experiences myself, I felt it was more important, more valuable, to let the story unfold naturally for the reader than to protect them from it.

John Ponepinto, former senior editor and co-publisher of Orca, said it perfectly in his substack Beyond Craft: “We must recognize the world is often a horrific, hurtful place. There can be safe spaces, but I don’t believe literature should be one of them.” I read this advice after I had responded to my affected reader, but it resonated with me.

So, I guess, the content warning can be about me as an author, but not my book. Read cautiously, and with heart, and I will work hard to give you a payoff that will make the discomfort worth it.