![The Main Character Thwarts Traditional Gender Roles [FICTOID]](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/590697e7d1758ec4d7669624/1585464452900-QAWJEE2LMJ50A0GIXPBN/FT+061+The+Main+Character+Thwarts+Traditional+Gender+Roles+-+Coby+Whitmore+SQR.jpg)
The Main Character Thwarts Traditional Gender Roles [FICTOID]
“Who am I talking to?”
“Who do you want to talk to?”
“I want to talk to the writer of our best seller, Winter Walkway.”
“The writer? Or the author?”
“There’s a difference?”
“Of course there is. “The author of Winter Walkway and Goldfish In My Driveway is Leslie Philmore, the romance novelist.
“But the writer is someone different.”
“Lots of people use pen names.”
“But how many use pen genders?”
“Leslie is not a she?”
“Don’t assume gender.”
“But Leslie is out bestselling woman writer.”
“Yes. Yes, she is. So why doesn’t poor Leslie make more royalties than Leigh Prescott, writer of a crop of not-so bestsellers such as The Buttress Affair and the Barnyard Death Squad series?”
“Wait…Leslie and Leigh are the same guy?!?!?”
“I wouldn’t say that.”
“The same gal?”
“I wouldn’t say that, either.”
“Well, who are they?!?!?”
“They are Leslie and Leigh.”
“Both? At the same time?”
“Occasionally, if circumstances demand it. But usually separately.”
“This is incredible. The writer of the most emotional feminine stories also writes our hardest hitting action books.”
“And children’s stories, as Lauren Penderston. I just turned in The Silly Little Steer last week.”
“Wow…”
“So whom do you wish to speak to?”
“Well, I originally called to talk to Leslie, but if Leigh is there I have some things to talk about, too, so…either one that’s available.”
“Speaking.”
© Buzz Dixon
