Libb

Am I a bad person?

No idea, how could I know.

But what I do know is that you seem a little keen on over-generalizing:

So when I hear about these Bible Belt US states, I think the people in them are absolutely disgusting folks. I have no respect for them. None. If a disaster hits them, I will not feel sad.

Are you US citizen (I’m not, if that matters)? If so, and even though you probably live in some other state than the ones you listed, be aware you still live in the same country as them and are sharing the very same citizznship. But you, you’re different than them? Sure, and I’m even I’m willing to believe that but then why couldn’t other individuals, in those other states you seem to hate so much, be different too?

It’s too easy to reduce all individuals from some place (or some origin, or some culture, or some religion, and so on) to an abstract ‘bad’ group of persons that deserve what will happen to them.

Also: account blocked. Creating an account just to post that kind of thing is a pretty demonstration of what happens when someone is letting anger/hate overgrow them.

What a wonderful world we’re entering in.

If you want to protect the privacy of your readers to be respected you won’t have much choice but to create your own website, and store it on a privacy respecting webhost whil using non privacy-invasive techs to manage your blog.

For example, I use Hugo (a static website generator, but there are other similar tools), without any script running on the website itself. So, there is zero tracking going on on my blog (I don’t even know if anyone is reading it unless they decide to send me an email, as there is no web contact form either). It’s hosted on a small host that I’ve been using (& trusting) for well over a decade. Hugo itself is 100% free, but the webhost rarely is. So, unless you know how to self-host you will have to pay a little something (you don’t need much to host a simple blog, unless you want to post video?).

Like suggested in another comment, if you just want to limit access to the content, any simple ready made solution allowing for password-controlled access should do the trick.

Not only do I like to see that a lot but it also reminds me I really need a new pair of those too… Or maybe I just need to stop buying more (used) books? Scratching my head, not even trying to hide my sorry smile while I glance at the 3 books I just found at the thrift store that I wanted to read for so long…

All answers are about am*rican or british X.

Maybe you have not read my answer?

I don’t have ‘best female author of all time’ but I do have favorite writers some of which happen to be female. I don’t usually split them by their sex (nor by their height, distaste for bananas, or whatever) as for me they’re all in the same ‘people who have a great time staining paper with ink making me a happy reader’ league but here it is, in absolutely no order beside the first two, as there is them and then there is all the others:

• Virginia Woolf (the only reason I would love to be able to travel in time is to meet her),
• Jane Austen,
• Edit: (how could I forget) Emily Dickinson!
• Sylvia Plath,
• Shirley Jackson (if you have not already, go read The Haunting of Hill House, it’s considered a classic for reasons),
• la marquise de Sévigné (she wrote letters and they make for a great read, no idea if it’s available in English),
• Margaret Atwood (imho she deserves a Nobel Prize, next to Woolf and Austen),
• Mary Shelley (like mentioned by others already, she well deserves to be read and would still have a lot to teach to some contemporary authors too, imho).
• I love reading Lizza Tuttle. Her horror short stories are different.
• In the same vein, I also quite like Mélanie Fazzi (who is also a translator of some of Tuttle’s stories, btw). But I can’t find that much more female writers in that specific genre (a lot more males do come to my mind).

Being French, I realize I have not listed that many French female writers I would consider a favorite. But they are a few I would consider excellent read nonetheless:

• La comtesse de Ségur (one of my childhood companion next to, say, Verne and Doyle),
• Simone de Beauvoir,
• (very) few pages of Marguerite Duras,
• Fred Vargas.
• To which I would also add Pauline Réage, because I think her ‘Histoire d’O’ is well worth reading for anyone into erotica.
• At one time, I also quite liked Joëlle Wintrebert (scifi) but I have not felt like reading her for a very long time so I could not tell.