Why HarperCollins Have Lost A Customer

UPDATE: What it's like to live in the shadow of a stalker.

Dear all at HarperCollins,

I'd like to bring to your attention the online (and, it seems, the real world) behaviour of one of your authors. Kathleen Hale.

Now, are you ready for this? This is a woman who took a negative review of her novel so badly that she wound up stalking and harassing the woman who posted the said review. Can we just repeat that:

SHE STALKED AND HARASSED SOMEONE WHO POSTED A NEGATIVE REVIEW.

Not only that, but she BULLIED someone who claimed to have been molested by Hale's own mother.

Where, in anyone's right mind, is that sane and safe behaviour?

I'm sure you're receiving a million emails about this and I'm sure I'll get a standard response from you that these articles are all fiction and not to worry about them.

I do worry, that's the problem.

You see, like many people, I've been bullied and harassed. But not just a little bit bullied and harassed and stalked. No, I've been at the point where I've had to move several times and change my name. I've had to have people tell the stalker that I'm DEAD before I've been left alone. I still live in fear of those people and constantly have to hide.

Let's reiterate that again shall we?

Stalking, bullying and harassing, whether real or fictional should NOT be tolerated. If those articles are fiction, then they should have said as much. If this is her behaviour, as a publisher, you shouldn't be scared. You should be TERRIFIED. Because if this was me was stalking, I wouldn't just be suing her. I'd be suing YOU as well. And she'd have made half my case against her and yourselves by posting it all on the public forum.

I'm appalled at you for allowing such articles to be published and I hope you reprimand this author. If she takes this action every time a negative review is posted then maybe you should tell her that writing (or any other form of employment that allows reviews) isn't for her. Ask her how she'd feel if she was the one who was being harassed. I bet she wouldn't like it. Actually, I'd love to sit and ask her myself. But I get the feeling that, from the way she writes, it probably wouldn't get through her thick skull. She looks like she's one of those people who's so wrapped up in herself in her own “problems” that no one else matters. I'd love you to prove me wrong and show me that she's actually a nice, decent, and caring human being but I doubt that you will. I would ask for a written apology from her but I'm scared that, if I send you my address, she'd come and stalk me as well.

If these articles were promotion for her book you can count me out from buying it. They're in extremely poor taste and even you have to admit to that. As such, you've now lost me as a customer and I'll be encouraging my friends, family, and community to do the same. 

Yours,

Rae

Kathleen Hale tracks down and visits the house of a critic not once, but twice.

Kathleen Hale stalks and bullies someone who accused Hale's own mother of molestation.