Talk:M. E. Kerr

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[edit] Separate Vin Packer article?

It seems ambitious when I've only just created an M.E. Kerr article at all, but it seems to me there may be a need for a separate article about Meaker's earliest pen name. I created the Kerr article because (a) she's one of the most prolific and honored young-adult writers around, yet there was no article about her and (b) there were references to Kerr in other major articles. However, I'm of two minds about including the Vin Packer material in this article.

On the one hand, the article is about Kerr and her work, whose audience does not overlap with the Packer books at all. In addition, many potential readers of this article are younger children who may not be ready to hear about her adult work or personal life. Some, sad to say, might even reject reading Kerr's YA novels after reading these other details.

On the other hand, the article is also about Meaker; it was created under M.E. Kerr for the reasons listed above, but I didn't see the point in a separate article for her real name, as she's only begun in the last three years or so to achieve any real publicity under that name (i.e., since the 2003 publication of her book about her relationship with Patricia Highsmith). So Packer is part of that story. Also, there are arguments for making Kerr's readership aware of the rest of her life: for GLBT kids who would appreciate not having her orientation "swept under the rug" or might benefit from knowing about her other work, and for other kids who might be encouraged in cutting GLBT authors off their reading lists by not being aware that any of their favorite authors might fall in this category.

Just wanted to open up for the discussion the idea of a separate article. A compromise between the two approaches outlined above would be to have a separate Vin Packer article, but make sure the M. E. Kerr article mentions it so that it needn't be stumbled across or found only by those "in the know" on the topic.Lawikitejana 06:14, 17 August 2006 (UTC)