{"id":34555,"date":"2017-10-30T06:28:56","date_gmt":"2017-10-29T17:28:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/?p=34555"},"modified":"2017-10-08T17:59:06","modified_gmt":"2017-10-08T04:59:06","slug":"should-authors-have-a-persona","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/2017\/10\/30\/should-authors-have-a-persona\/","title":{"rendered":"Should Authors Have a Persona?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/2010\/12\/11\/what-im-reading-11\/thedifferenceengine1sted\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-2718\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright wp-image-2718 \" src=\"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/12\/TheDifferenceEngine1stEd-192x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"97\" height=\"152\" srcset=\"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/12\/TheDifferenceEngine1stEd-192x300.jpg 192w, https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/12\/TheDifferenceEngine1stEd.jpg 240w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 97px) 100vw, 97px\" \/><\/a>In last Monday&#8217;s post I mentioned the creation of the steampunk subgenre, largely credited to William Gibson and Bruce Sterling&#8217;s <em>The Difference Engine<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s a subgenre that loans itself to cosplay and the creation of personas, one of the most well-known being author <a href=\"http:\/\/gailcarriger.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Gail Carriger&#8217;s<\/a> public image associated with tea, vintage clothes, and etiquette, consistent with her <strong>Parasol Protectorate<\/strong> series. In short, Gail&#8212;like her books \ud83d\ude42 &#8212;is very stylish.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/?attachment_id=34570\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-34570\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-34570\" src=\"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/Soulless-98x150.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"98\" height=\"150\" srcset=\"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/Soulless-98x150.jpg 98w, https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/Soulless.jpg 120w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 98px) 100vw, 98px\" \/><\/a>Which got me thinking, though, about whether it was important for an author to have a persona, either consistent with her\/his genre or independent of it? So I thought I would ask what fellow readers and writers out there think. Is it important? Not important? Adds to the fun but is not essential? Or distracts from the serious business of writing and reading?<\/p>\n<p>Colour me curious, I guess&#8230; But humour me, let me know <em>your<\/em> powerful thoughts on the topic! And more&#8212;share your favourite author persona! \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In last Monday&#8217;s post I mentioned the creation of the steampunk subgenre, largely credited to William Gibson and Bruce Sterling&#8217;s The Difference Engine. It&#8217;s a subgenre that loans itself to cosplay and the creation of personas, one of the most well-known being author Gail Carriger&#8217;s public image associated with tea, vintage clothes, and etiquette, consistent [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34555","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-funstuff","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34555","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34555"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34555\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34572,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34555\/revisions\/34572"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34555"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34555"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34555"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}