[at-l] Re: ej's post

[KBerger466@aol.com]

As a professional writer, I run into the issue all the time: How do you tell 
the truth of a situation (or at least YOUR truth of it) without hurting 
innocent bystanders? On my AT thru-hiker, there was a really obnoxious purist 
couple who kept posting insulting messages about other hikers, sometimes 
actually naming those hikers and saying really mean things about them. If I 
ever write about that, I'm going to change their names and identifying 
characteristics, even thought they didn't have the courtesy to do the same. 
They always seemed pleasant enough to me, but in writing about others, they 
could be quite mean at times. My job a a writer isn't to hurt these people 
(even though they might deserve it) -- it's to explore an issue using 
specifics from life. Unfortunately, I think people are careless in E-mail and 
in registers. When we consider that we might have to meet the people we write 
about, we might exercise a little more consideration. Potential supervisors 
are EVERYWHERE!  

And incidentally, Eve is 37 -- which is hardly middle-aged! I know this for 
an absolute fact, since I will be 41 this month. 

Karen Berger
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