Should anyone out there be doubting my literary credentials, I’ll simply point you to my recent degree from my old alma mater, Thunderwood Collegiate. In confers upon your hostess the title of “Mistress of Creative Writing in Transgender Literature“. Take that, all you critics.
I should add that I haven’t actually heard from any critics of my work (if they exist, which I seriously doubt); this is just to get ahead of the game.
Amanda
Amanda's Reading Room 
Technically when we compliment your work we are being critics of your work too … (On your other point, I’m working through the anthology your piece “Acceptance” was recently in, and the writings are pretty uneven in quality, but it seems ungracious to pick on it too much. So much of the TG stuff I’ve seen is either free, or clearly for charity. I suppose editors are likely to be your most legit critiques …
I’ll agree with that, although I can’t comment on the rest of the anthology since I haven’t read any of the other stories. But it does seem unfair to criticize amateur work posted for free on the Web, which is why I refrain from doing so. The most important thing is that for someone to get better, they have to keep working at it. Constructive criticism can help, but it’s way too easy to discourage someone too. It’s a fine line.
What I would like to see is more celebration of quality writing, when it does appear. That’s something that gets lost in what I would describe as a general uncritical acceptance of what’s on offer. Oh, well. C’est la vie.
Anybody who reads your captions and stories at least ought to recognize the great care with with which you craft your works.
One would think so… and I suspect most people do.
Yet I’m always amazed at how generous people are toward captions and stories that have obviously been posted with little thought toward making them more reader-friendly. On the one hand, it’s touching that people are being so encouraging toward others. On the other hand, I think it’s too bad that competence (in both writing and presentation) isn’t being recognized the way it is in the world at large. I guess the TG community still has some growing up to do.
Amanda
I cannot vouch for anyone else but in my opinion is that when there are people in the closet I think that they are also hiding in their responses on sites as well.