If someone said “Nothing against women writers, but all of my favorite crime fiction authors happen to be men,” how would you respond?

Fuck you.

Probably, then I’d walk away.

If I didn’t. If I stayed and kept chatting, I’d add something like this:

Seriously. It’s the twenty first century, and you appear not to notice how offensive the phrase “nothing against women” is, or how it suggests, right off the bat, that you find the women’s works inferior. Also, you are an idiot if you didn’t notice you’re talking to a woman mystery author, so you are implying that you have no desire to read my work at all because it’s sure to be inferior to a man’s writing.… Read the rest