Wikipedia talk:Articles for deletion/Mary W. Walters

Comment from subject
I am not sure if this is the right place for me to add this note, but I am the subject of this Wikipedia entry and I am very sad that you are considering deleting it.

I have been writing and publishing in Canada for nearly forty years, and my fiction and short stories have been gratifyingly well received. As I'm sure you know, winning writing awards is very difficult, especially when you live outside the major centres (which I did until 6 years ago) but I've been short-listed for a couple too -- of which I am also very proud, most notably the Journey Prize. The latter is no small potatoes. I have also contributed as a teacher of writing and as a member of numerous executive committees in the fields of writing and publishing in Canada.

Six years ago, maverick that I am (and in the spirit of such initiatives as Wikipedia itself), after publishing four books with traditional presses, my frustration with the way the publishing industry was treating authors along with a lot of other factors made me decide to explore the world of self-publishing. I have extensive experience in the publishing business and have been a professional editor for decades, so I did my best to create (two) books that would be competitive in terms of quality with books that were traditionally published. Despite the fact that I believe I have done that, and have even been hired by The Writers' Union of Canada to be a co-presenter on the subject of self-publishing in a ten-city series of full-day workshops on the subject, these are still early days for self-publishers even with a track record because there is so much shit out there. So I am persona non-grata for the most part. It's frustrating, and even heartbreaking, to be judged by so many people not on what you write but how you get it to market, but I am not giving up.

One of the things that a self-publisher does not have is all of the side-benefits of having a publishing company: such as a department that will get your profile on Wikipedia. There are many many writers from around the world who are safely settled on Wikipedia who have far fewer credentials than I do. I would give three examples that i picked at random from among writers I know: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Candas_Jane_Dorsey; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marie_Moser, and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suzette_Mayr. There are dozens of others that you will find if you look on this list, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Canadian_writers -- or, I am sure, the list of authors from any country you can think of. There are, of course, also hundreds of writers with far more accomplishments than I have.

I wrote this entry. I am sure I am not the only subject of a wikipedia bio who has written her own entry. But I could not figure out how to get it posted since you do not permit self-postings I thought of exchanging the favour with another writer of similar stature to me in Canada and she was very willing but never got around to working on it. I konw a lot of writers and readers in Canada but I am too embarrassed to ask most people if they would do this for me, and I didn't want to involve any relatives in case things turned out the way they are turning out now. So after having a great enthusiastic offer from one friend (a keen reader) who procrastinated on it for a year, I spent several weeks dithering over whether to make a heartfelt pitch to your editors to allow me to put it up myself. But I was so afraid my plea would be rejected that when someone finally mentioned the services of Fivrrr to me, I thought "What the hell. I'll give it a shot." Aside from f'ing up most of my references, he didn't alter anything and he warned me that I hadn't had enough mentions in the media and might be rejected but I assured him that thousands of writers were on Wikipedia whose ONLY claim to fame (which is plenty, to my mind) was that they had written some good (well reviewed) books. I paid him CAD$10 and told him to go ahead. I am not proud of it, but I was so afraid that if I asked Wikipedia what to do, I would be banished forever, that I hoped that the entry would pass muster if someone else, anyone else, posted it.

I am sorry if the piece sounds like promotion. I am happy if it's edited. I don't care if it needs to be cut dramatically or even if it has to be removed until I do some more remarkable things. My big fear is that if you reject me now, I'll never get back on. And since I do feel as though I am as well qualified as many on this site, that would make me very sad.

If you are interested in reading about my agonies with the publishing industry, you can start here: https://maryww.wordpress.com/2009/04/14/the-talent-killers-how-literary-agents-are-destroying-literature-and-what-publishers-can-do-to-stop-them/ The item was published in 2009, and I have been fighting an uphill battle to get my books noticed ever since. Wikipedia is key, and I feel as though I am as entitled as many of your current entries to be here. Maybe you can give me some advice on how to save myself from condemning myself to permanent obscurity at my own hand.

Thank you. Would be happy to sign this if I knew how. :)Marywwriter (talk) 14:44, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Marywwriter (talk • contribs) 14:09, 29 December 2015 (UTC)


 * Both Mayr and Dorsey have won or been nominated for notableliterary awards of the top national class that confers an automatic WP:AUTHOR pass; Moser hasn't, but her article cites reliable sources. There's no reason why you couldn't qualify to have a Wikipedia article, but Wikipedia is not a public relations platform on which anybody is entitled to have an article just because they exist — it's an encyclopedia, where the base criterion that gets a person into Wikipedia is that they have been the subject of substantive coverage in reliable sources. The problem with your article, at present, is the quality of sourcing — it claims enough that it could certainly be kept if it were sourced properly, but "sourced properly" doesn't describe the way the article has actually been written and referenced. Bearcat (talk) 21:42, 8 January 2016 (UTC)