Crime author reaps whirlwind after urging JK Rowling to stop writing

Lynn Shepherd sets off storm of protest by suggesting Harry Potter author has 'had her turn' and is harming others' prospects

Alison Flood - theguardian.com, Thursday 27 February 2014 

JK Rowling launches her first novel for adults, The Casual Vacancy, in September 2012. Photograph: Ian West/PA

The British crime novelist Lynn Shepherd has found herself at the centre of a storm after she called on JK Rowling to stop writing because she has "had [her] turn", suggesting that other writers need "room to breathe".

Writing in the Huffington Post, in a piece provocatively headlined "If JK Rowling Cares About Writing, She Should Stop Doing It", Shepherd claimed that Rowling's first adult novel The Casual Vacancy "sucked the oxygen from the entire publishing and reading atmosphere". Admitting that she had never read a word of Rowling's writing, Shepherd said that "Rowling has no need of either the shelf space or the column inches, but other writers desperately do", and asked the bestselling author to hang up her pen.

Lynn Shepherd. Photograph: Geoffrey Swaine/Rex

"By all means keep writing for kids, or for your personal pleasure – I would never deny anyone that – but when it comes to the adult market you've had your turn," wrote Shepherd, author of historical crime novels including Murder at Mansfield Park, Tom-All-Alone's (US title The Solitary House) and A Treacherous Likeness (published in the US as A Fatal Likeness). "Enjoy your vast fortune and the good you're doing with it, luxuriate in the love of your legions of fans, and good luck to you on both counts. But it's time to give other writers, and other writing, room to breathe."

Published despite a warning that her intervention would be seen as sour grapes, the blog was immediately deluged with hundreds of angry responses. " As a successful author and freelance writer, I read this with my mouth hanging open. I don't think there is anything lower than publicly dissing another author – WITHOUT EVEN READING THEIR BOOKS," wrote author Robin O'Bryant. Another reader called the article "absolute rot. And, really, a bit shameful", adding: "An artist begging another artist to abandon their art because others can't compete? It's like the song Jolene, only a lot more pathetic."

The row quickly spread to Twitter, where writer Mark Chadbourn said Shepherd's piece was an example of "how authors can shoot themselves in the head, via a catastrophic misunderstanding of how publishing works", and the award-winning Paolo Bacigalupi called it "zero-sum author thinking", adding: "If you think other people's success diminishes you, don't be a writer."
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