Postcards (or Email) from the Edge

Last night I received a highly contentious email that was, unfortunately, far too typical of the type of letters I (and many other authors) receive. To give you an idea of what I receive on a daily basis, please enjoy the following letter from one of my readers. I have lightly edited the letter for space and clarity as well as to remove derogatory statements directed at my appearance.

Wow, how to describe your spurious intellectual train wreck, 'Cult of Alien Gods?' Should I start with your juvenile thesis about the decline of western civilization due to old horror stories that no one but you ever took seriously? Or perhaps the way you conveniently overlook the fact that Lovecraft wasn't writing about aliens at all (surely there's a website on-line that can 'cliff-note' you through Lovecraft's actual mythos) or your pathetically foolish notion that 'alien astronaut' investigation (as you so ineptly express it) is bogus because "it all just references each other's work" R U retarded? … [You] never have any answers of your own, or even try to formulate a half-decent explanation, you just sheepishly hide under the concretized lies of the establishment, whining about "Indians losing their cultural heritage" and so on....sad. How does acknowledging that Mayans observed the stars for 30,000 years rob them of anything? It robs you of your expensively obtained, degree-based ego-trip, and nothing else. Also, your transparent depiction of yourself as a 'true believer' turned skeptic was very superficial and contrived (not to mention exceedingly brief) you should have let somebody else, a better fictionalist, write those lies for you, then they might have been a little more convincing. Wow, you're dumb. SCARY DUMB. … I don't know what they're paying you to make an ass of yourself in print, but it's not enough. … Next morning, when I wake up and look in the mirror, I'll be saying "THANK GOD I'M NOT JASON COLAVITO!!!"

Well, that was interesting. Many of the negative letters I receive demonstrate an obsession with the faults of college degrees, which is humorous since those who know me know well how little stock I put into my own college experience. Also, though I have edited it from the letter, many writers also insist that I was somehow a miserable object of high school torment, another odd notion that I imagine says more about the writers than it does me.