Celeste Ng is right: authors shouldn't feel forced to respond to readers

The award-winning writer kicked up a storm by asking teachers not to tell students to email her – but readers shouldn’t feel entitled to an author’s reply

Email and social media have become so integrated in our lives, it can be difficult to discern the exact amount of labour that goes into responding to an email or tweet. While for many of us – including newly minted freelance writers such as myself – our email load won’t rise to an overbearing level, it’s a different matter for authors.

On Wednesday, Celeste Ng, author of Everything I Never Told You, which won Amazon’s book of the year award, simply tweeted a request to teachers not to assign emails to authors. In a series of explanatory tweets to angry users, who tweeted to chide her for being “selfish” and tell her that students should stop reading her book, Ng patiently explained that a teacher required students to obtain a quote from her in order to receive full credit.

Teachers: please, please, please don't assign your students to email an author and ask questions. It's not fair to us or to them.

I try to reply to all, but sometimes can't. A kid's grade shouldn't depend on the author being able to reply. https://t.co/9vTQJTJ58A

@RussTop3Ever @petersagal @pronounced_ing Her point isn't "I hate my fans." It's "Don't make your lesson plan contingent on my free labor."

Yes! Genuine responses are a huge gift & I try to write back. But I don't want my slow response to = bad grade. https://t.co/ROYrMXcNnK

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