10 January 2012 11.oo am gmt
My long-term dispute with the TQF publisher:
By means of a password, I am making it more difficult for general viewing of my evidential threads (maintained to safeguard my position in the face of public accusations from the TQF publisher regarding my integrity etc) – and this will hopefully serve to reduce distractions from my on-going real-time reviews of TQF fiction that I anticipate being worthy of such treatment, i.e. in like manner to my long-term on-going reviews of ‘Black Static’ fiction, for example.
My initial complaint regarding TQF’s ‘Weirdtongue’ review was a justifiable authorial complaint in measured tones. I have not continued that initial complaint. I have merely complained about the nature of the various reactions by the TQF publisher to my intial measured complaint and, later, about his reactions to my own reactions and so on. I hope this ‘passwording’ method — i.e. without destroying any evidence (links etc) of what I consider to be relevant or contextual examples of my own and the TQF publisher’s public actions since the original review – will serve to put a stop to this negative spiral of reaction.
So…..here are my considered pointers (past and on-going) regarding this whole matter: i.e. for genuine interested parties, please contact dflewis48@hotmail.com for single password:
http://weirdtongue.wordpress.com/the-autonymity-sic-of-weirdtongue/
https://nullimmortalis.wordpress.com/2011/08/03/linking-links-to-links/
http://dflewisreviews.wordpress.com/john-updike/
https://nullimmortalis.wordpress.com/2011/04/30/no-blame/
I reserve the right to change the password at any time. For updated password, when necessary, please write to me at above address.
My TQF fiction reviews (so far):
https://nullimmortalis.wordpress.com/2011/07/26/real-time-review-of-tqf-37/
https://nullimmortalis.wordpress.com/2012/01/06/real-time-review-of-tqf-39/
Last Balcony: Essex Serpents and Pier’s Echo 
My latest postion was here: https://nullimmortalis.wordpress.com/2012/01/06/real-time-review-of-tqf-39/ –> “Without compromising my own position in the personal public dispute between myself and the TQF publisher, I have, today, ex gratia and unilaterally, reduced the public accessibilty to various evidential threads on my blog so as to obviate, as far as I feel possible, any distractions from my real-time reviews, past and future, of TQF’s excellent fiction publications. Not a sign of weakness on my part, but a sign of strength, I hope. But one should not be pitching perceived strength against perceived weakness in this context. Only a testing-ground of perceived truth against perceived truth.”
And here: http://ttapress.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=22675#22675 –>
“I think reviews divide into 3
(1) those that curve as far as possible to the positive to encourage reading in general (a la John Updike’s reviewing rules).
(2) Those that are negative.
(3) Those that are mocking or tendentious.
With (3), I suggest the review is not made at all or given to another reviewer.”
It has been over a year since I wrote here and I note that the following contested public statement addressed to me in July 2011 by Stephen Theaker:
“For the sake of your literary reputation, vanity, sales and self-esteem you’ve been willing to abandon any professional courtesy, any politeness, any decency, any honour, any integrity”
continues to be on the public blog that is currently headed by the banner-title of “Theaker’s Quarterly Fiction, unfortunately”.
The 66 comments including the contested statement were once deleted. They may have been deleted and reinstated on occasions since then, without my knowledge.
Another six months since I last checked this position and the “66 comments” remain on the TQF blog.
The TQF editor recently stated on a public tweet that ‘we both went a bit nuts’ in that discussion. Well, I, for one, don’t admit to ‘going nuts’ on it at all, but striving to defend myself until the thread was closed to new posts.
I don’t think there is any longer a need to password the above links on this minority interest matter, so today I have made them fully public again. I now hope to forget about this issue or be allowed to do so – and I shall leave these sites eventually as an archive of record, in which I take whatever historic blame is due to me.
The posts at these various links are to items of my real-time account of the Weirdtongue palaver and represent my honest opinion at the times the posts were written from 2010 onward, i.e. from before the TQF review of Weirdtongue until now.
Caveat – some of my earlier opinions have since been changed by later events in real-time.
Footnote – Upon re-reading these posts today at these links, I feel they may, in hindsight, also represent a parallel case study or marginal influence upon how the real-time sensibility of my GRTRs or Dreamcaptchas has developed and even why some works of fiction were chosen. These form a set of real-time book reviews from 2008; I am proud and pleasantly surprised that they have been nominated for the most recent BFS non-fiction award.
Strictly in response to four public tweets by Stephen that followed the above and our other open contacts on that date, I can confirm that I am not ‘implacably hostile’ to him. In fact, the “50 comments” on the TQF site here (when Stephen ‘interviewed’ me) give another picture of events, one that I found fairer than the “66 comments”.
Revisit: https://dflewisreviews.wordpress.com/7684-2/#comment-6893