John Scalzi asks, "Fans: What Do We Owe Them?"

[rsadelle]

Apparently Laurell K. Hamilton went all Ann Rice on some fans. John Scalzi (from whom I also heard about the original incident) has a post worth reading about someone else's reaction to it.

And this is what it boils down to, really: Who is going to be the adult in the artist-audience relationship? Ideally, of course, you're both adults -- you as the artist give your best effort, and then the audience treats your work critically but fairly and doesn't hold it against you that you're not perfect. But in the case where it turns out that only one of you is going to get to be an adult, as the artist you should damn well try to make sure that the adult in the relationship is you.