Essay Prompt: Let's say you have a favorite author. You've read all his or her novels or stories and have found them not only entertaining but also enlightening and inspiring. But then you read or hear that the author wasn't or isn't a very nice person. He or she had or has some seriously unpleasant, even "ugly" character flaws and behavioral issues.

Describe how this new knowledge might affect your view of the author and his or her works. Would you be able to separate the author's "message" from what you know about his or her life and behavior? (If you in fact have experienced such a "discovery," describe what happened.) More generally, should knowing an author's "real" life and character affect how we read his or her writing, or should the works "speak for themselves"?