Banned book interview

[Deirdre]

i am Deirdre Fleming's son, I am doing a book project and would like some opinions on banned books for my school project.

Are there any authors in the forum that have had a book banned? How did it make you feel?

[I. J. Parker]

Third time perfect! :)

I doubt that mere writers of crime fiction get into that much trouble (though some of us may try). Generally it means that more people want to buy the books, so I expect authors would like it.

On the other hand, writers are on principle opposed to censorship.

Not sure how old you are, but books used to be banned because they attacked matters of faith or involved explicit sex.

It would be interesting to find out what is banned now and where and why.

[John McFetridge]

There've been a few news stories lately about books being pulled from the shelves of school libraries which is quite a bit different from a book being 'banned.'

Of course, this page covers most of the famous banned books.

What's more common these days is self-censorship where authors stay away from putting something a book that might cause it to not get published or even to hurt sales. Often that can be even more effective than banning.

[Anne Frasier]

I recently had a cousin tell me she was called to the principal's office where she was told that she could no longer brings my books to school -- that they were inappropriate. My cousin is thirteen, almost fourteen. I thought the whole things was really bizarre.

[Deirdre]

That does seem quite bizarre. Hope that won't deter her from reading on.

Deirdre

[Deirdre]

Thank you. He is 16 and they are studying Huckleberry Finn in 11th grade English. Which led to the banned book project.

He has a list of banned books and who the authors are (of course its at school) and noticed Stephen King was on it. He's e-mailed him through the Washington Post address to (surprise) no avail. I used to have his active e-mail but alas during one of the computer crashes (on the old computer) its no longer on my contact list.

Thank you for the website listed below. It was helpful.

He'll have more questions for those happy to participate, tonight.

Sincerely,
Deirdre

[DADavenport]

I haven't published a novel yet, so I can't claim any of the glory of having been banned. But I can tell you that the quickest way to get me to read a book is to ban it! I can be a pretty rebellious and stubborn person and it's like waving a red flag in front of my face.

I loathe the practice of banning books...nobody has the right to tell me what I can and cannot read. I'm an adult and I can make up my own mind regarding that. So , in order to support all writers everywhere I will hunt down and read a banned book, even if it's just to see what the hoopla is. So banning has the opposite effect on me.

[John McFetridge]

A bookstore in Canada, Little Sister Books, has waged many battles with Canada Customs over banned books.

This link has some info. I'm not sure it's what you want for a high school project, though, most of the banned books are gay pornography, but it would be fun to see what the school library has to say.