bookslut, on this day in 1933, Ezra Pound met Benito Mussolini, and became a groupie of a thug.I'm not really qualified to judge myself, but generally Pound's poetry is respected and read often. Arthur Koestler was a terrible person, but people still read Darkness at Noon.
Who else meets the "bad person, good writer" criteria? (My apologies to his fans, but I don't think Orson Scott Card meets the second part of the requirements). And does your knowledge of a writer's personal behavior affect your ability to read him or her? Or do you deliberately not read author introductions or afterwards when you read a novel or collection of stories?