https://www.montgomeryadvertiser.com/story/opinion/2022/05/04/puritans-alive-and-well-and-walking-among-us/9641935002/

A few years ago, I got a contract for my first novel and went to New York to meet my editor. I was excited but also intimidated, as if my future hinged on this meeting. When I saw the editor was close in age to my twenty-something son, I relaxed — until she suggested revisions.

“I love your novel,” she said, “but we always have to make a few edits.”

Her biggest revision involved my choice of villain. I had put Irish blackguards in charge of a plot in 1589 to kill Queen Elizabeth I. “But many Irish people did hate the queen,” I said. The editor held firm, but I wasn’t a complete milque-toast. “Why not the Irish?” I asked.

In a roundabout way, she explained that making villains out of the Irish would not be in my best interest: Choose assassins who don’t exist anymore — killers who aren’t buying books. The publisher she worked for has long been accomplished at not offending purchasers. Once I was back home in Alabama, I did some research and replaced the Irish with the Puritans, who also hated QEI. According to reputable historians, the last traces of Puritanism died out by 1730. I assured my editor that Puritans had not existed for nearly three hundred years.

SNIP