Category: Elsewhere on the Internets

This is why I don’t go to WorldCon

By:  TempestConventions
This is why I don't go to WorldCon

I used to go to WorldCon every year without fail, kind of like the way I go to WisCon now. But long ago WorldCon chafed on me, and I realized that it was far more expensive than other cons and more of a trip to see my friends than an enjoyable con experience. Beyond that, though, it got to be more than a little annoying to deal with the cluelessness around race. WorldCon is big — not Comicon big, but big. Therefore you cannot predict from what quarter the crazy might come at you and thus avoid it.

So when I read posts like Karnythia’s about her first WorldCon experience, it just reinforces my conviction that being there would not be healthy for me. That’s a big ball of fail right there.

I know that I will go back to WorldCon someday. When I have a book out I’ll need to promote it. And when I’m nominated for a Hugo I want to be on the scene in case I win. And I acknowledge that the entire con is not some huge, writhing mass of fail. Like anywhere there are good parts and bad parts and neutral parts and there’s usually a squid, too. But for the amount of money it costs, plus the energy it drains, I’m better off making WisCon and World Fantasy my must-go conventions with a happy dash of ReaderCon on the side.

Creating Better Magazines

By:  TempestNon-Fiction Publications

Yesterday at Tor.com I nattered on about what it takes to create better magazines. Was at work when it went up, so I didn’t get a chance to post about it. The conversation in comments is actually interesting, though there does seem to be one person determined to make me out as a person who hates white people! Or something.

Also, Mike Ashley STILL hasn’t answered my open letter! Sadness.

Once More, With Feeling: Intersectionality

By:  TempestBlog Against Racism
Once More, With Feeling: Intersectionality

Or: why the Male Only Table of Contents issue is about both Gender and Race

So over on Marguerite’s blog editor Mike Ashley of the Mammoth Book of White Men Fail Mindbowing SF explains that the stories he was looking for, those that blew his mind with science, aren’t usually written by women, and therefore that’s why he couldn’t find any to include. Women are writing about people, you see, not necessarily science. Whatever. But, as I pointed out there, even if this was a valid excuse for an all-male TOC, that does not explain the lack of POC. A white male friend then pinged me, privately, to say: but isn’t that confusing the issue? Are you criticising him for having only men or no POC? And the answer is: both. And, not surprisingly, the two issues are intertwined.

To wit: when anthologies like this hit the Internets and we look at the TOC it’s very easy to notice that there are no women. It is therefore very easy to comment on and get angry about this fact. It is also easy for editors to come along and address only this exclusion, usually by saying “I didn’t pay attention to the bylines” and “women don’t write the kind of stories I was looking for” or “I don’t want to include them just as tokens”. Because at that point editors can pass it off as taste, and not even one based on gender, but on types of fiction.

But.

When one notices that these anthologies also don’t include any writers of color, either male or female, that complicates the issue, doesn’t it? It’s no longer just about whether men write these kinds of stories and women don’t. Because men of color write science fiction, too. Are we then going to even begin to say that they write more about people and not about science? Of course not. Stupid people are more likely to whip out, “But their stories are about race and only black people care about race!” Those people are wrong on both counts.

The same mindset is at work in both cases. It’s not “women/POC don’t write the kind of stories I was looking for,” it’s: I only like/read/understand/connect to/care for stories about white, male concerns.

That is a problem. Because SF, be it mammoth or mindblowing or sciencey, is not just about white, male concerns. And any anthology of SF or fantasy or horror that essentially posits the white male concerns as representative, normal, baseline, or default is an anthology made of fail. Because that is not what the genre is right now. Maybe 20 years ago. Hell, maybe 10 years ago. But not now. Not in the future.

As I said at Readercon, the future of this genre is women, people of color, people of different classes, people outside of the default American culture, people outside of America, period. When people ignore or suppress or marginalize this truth, be it intentionally or through laziness of mind, as appears to be the case here, you are In The Wrong in every way imaginable.

Understood?

Ever wonder why I’m angry? This might be a reason…

By:  TempestBlog Against Racism

I need not add anything else:

…many of the things that make me angry are topics that have a direct bearing on my ability to have a successful writing career, it’s hard to tune it all out. This is my livelihood we’re talking about, after all. I need to know if I’m going to have to turn my short story protagonists from female to male, or gay to straight, or whatever, in order to get published in ___ Magazine. … And I need to know which editors and agents and publishers and authors think it’s OK to throw racist and gendered slurs at people who look like me, simply because those people have opinions they disagree with. I might need to work with those editors, etc., later. It’s important to know who to watch out for.

[…]

But I don’t understand why anyone would think I want to do this. Why anyone would think I like watching my blood pressure numbers inch up week by week. Why anyone would think I happily, eagerly “play the race card”, whatever that means — or that doing so would actually benefit me in any way. Why anyone would think I’m glad to spend hours of each week reading up about the latest imbroglios, writing responses to them, posting clandestine reviews of problematic books (and worrying about how those reviews will come back to bite me on the ass), preparing for difficult panels at cons, and bracing myself for uncomfortable interactions at every single networking event I attend. Why anyone would think I gleefully await the next instance of a stranger feeling up my hair, or a favorite author showing his ass on race and gender issues, or an established pro shouting at me that this field is a meritocracy dammit, or an even more established pro using the n-word on a woman just like me. I’m boggled by the idea that some people think I find this work desirable, much less fun, when it hurts me every damn day.

Yes. What she said.

Guest Blogging, Wiki-ing, and the like

By:  TempestElsewhere on the Internets
Guest Blogging, Wiki-ing, and the like

I feel like I must have mentioned this before, but looking back it seems maybe not. Anyway, this month I’ve been guest blogging at the Carl Brandon Society blog. I think this is going to become a regular thing as it seems like they’re very pleased with the lists of POC fiction I’ve been posting.

By the way, if you’re POC and have short fiction coming out in 2009, please let me know so I can include you in future lists. Instructions at this link. If you already had something come out in 2009 and missed my announcement before, you can add your story yourself to the Carl Brandon wiki. There’s also a 2008 short fiction entry.

At some point I’d like to start listing novels on the wiki. But it may take someone other than me starting that project. Though if I continue blogging at CBS, then another thing I want to start doing is mini author interviews whenever a writer of color has a book coming out. Something similar to the author spotlights I did at Fantasy Magazine. A 4 – 6 stock questions that hopefully elicit interesting answers. It’ll be a quick and easy way to start keeping a list of who’s publishing what and when. Plus, promotion!

And finally, if you will all please head over to this post about artists of color in SF/F — I’m trying to create a list. I hope it will also go up on the wiki someday. I only have two comments, sad! I know there are many artists of color out there. Please add your favorites or add yourself.

In Which Harlan Ellison Apologizes

By:  TempestElsewhere on the Internets

I had forewarning of this a few hours before it was posted but wanted to wait until it was published. This went up on Harlan’s message board earlier:

HARLAN ELLISON
– Friday, July 24 2009 16:35:36 OPEN LETTER TO MS. KAY TEMPEST BRADFORD

Dear Ms. Bradford:

You have a number of good friends who also happen to be good friends of mine. They have rallied on your behalf, to contact me by phone (four today alone), to tan my bottom in regards to my, well, at best, at very minimally best, my “snarky” response to what I perceived to be yet another Total Stranger Meanspirited Internet Troll Assault. I fear there is still a tot too much “street” in me to let such perceived calumny go unanswered.

Apparently, I received inadequate information, some of which I interpreted incorrectly, some of which was simply wrong.

One of the heartrending epiphanies of the current Paradigm Shift is that the most adolescently ignorant demographic of this far-from-perfect society needs to (as my President said today) “ratchet down the noise-level.” The moment one such as I goes for the okeydoke and begins to believe this “geezer” bullshit, is the moment one realizes that we like in a Momentary-Celebrity Culture, and for everyone claiming sexism, racism, elitism, et al … there are 10,000 arrogant little twits, semi-literate, semi-humanoid, and less-than-semi-courteous, who truly believe that to have SURVIVED and STILL BE PULLING THE PLOW, is to grant them power over you. Depression and anger and suicide follow therefrom.

I am 75. I’m old, I ain’t senile.

I still work, I still publish, I still have very cool thoughts and do very cool deeds, every day. I’m not quite ready yet to let monkeybrain bloggers who need Google to know who Colette or Guy de Maupassant are, predicate my existence.

Mmm. I’ve drifted. Your friends tell me to back off and not attempt to exact the demonic vigerish that is my wont. Several people known and unknown to me personally advise me that you are rather a cranky soul yourself, so you shouldn’t be TOO ‘tude about my responding in kind.

That it turns out you’re not as deserving of my bestial attentions as others I’ve used as objects of scaphism, warms my li’l ole heart, and if any part of my reply to your various blogs here’n’there was over the line, consider this a gentlemanly apologia. I know this message will get to you, via one or another conduit, so here’s my IfYouTalkTheTalk you’d better be ready to WalkTheWalk: I have no idea where you live, but if you are anywhere near where I am, please name the time and the day, and my wife, Susan, and I would be condign taking you for an excellent meal at one of the great joints I frequent.

THEN–and ONLY then–you’ll be able to make your own informed judgment about me. And you won’t have to poison yourself with the fanboy/fangirl gossip that substitutes for ratiocination on this electronic asswipe of a medium.

You know where to find me.

Respectfully, Harlan Ellison

The person who forewarned me was one of the folks who called Harlan and the apology she reported to me was less equivocal than the above, but either way Harlan has said he’s sorry. And, as I suspected, someone or several someones have been feeding him “misleading” information about the whole discussion.

I have three things to say about this. The first is: wow, four people were willing to call Harlan Ellison on my behalf. I know who one of those persons are. I must say, you’re all very brave and very good friends. Thank you. (Also thank you to everyone who has commented here or on other posts expressing outrage and support of me, it means a lot.)

Second, I plan on accepting this apology and not worrying to much over some of the extant details because, as I said in my other post, I have no desire to “get into it” with Ellison. I’m glad someone gave him the facts, which is what I had wanted, but would rather re-enter the world where Harlan doesn’t care about what I say or do. That said, I can’t dictate what the rest of you do. There’s issues here and you’re free to discuss them.

Third, I’m sure some people’s heads are exploding because I got this apology, and not all for the same reason. I don’t expect to get apologizes from certain others but I do expect you all to show at least this level of decency now and in the future, okay? Okay.

ETA: for the defenders of Harlan’s honor who, strangely, started showing up en masse last night: Harlan APOLOGIZED. He apologized! It’s over. Go home! I’m not letting your increasingly bizzare attempts to defend/explain/make better what he did and what he said out of moderation because they are not helpful or appreciated. Plus, they are negated by the fact that he apologized. I accepted, I’m moving on. Why can’t you? Seriously.

In Which Harlan Ellison Has Things To Say

By:  TempestElsewhere on the Internets
In Which Harlan Ellison Has Things To Say

I actually thought I was done posting about this. Hm.

Okay, so a couple of days ago someone told Harlan Ellison about the Realms art/cover/boob discussion thing going on but, apparently, did not actually send him links or anything, just told him “Hey, some woman somewhere is calling Realms’ publisher a sexist!” or somesuch. Internet telephone being what it is (and considering the probable source and considering the phobia Ellison has of the actual Internet), I’m not surprised that this is the version of the conversation that’s reached him. And if you do not know, right now, the gist of what Harlan’s commentary is, then you don’t know squat about Harlan. You’re lucky.

Now, when I first heard this I had a notion of actually writing to him or posting on his weird message board thing that, actually, no one was accusing any person of being a horrible sexist, and giving him the actual background on what we’re talking about. But then I thought: Why in Zuul’s name should I care about the opinions of a guy who grabs women’s breasts in public and thinks it’s cool? He’s really not the audience for such a discussion. Nor is he someone I care to convince.

During my Clarion West, we had this fun running gag where we’d ask our instructors for Harlan Ellison stories. I think this got started because someone in our first week told a particularly funny one. The other stories ranged from funny to “OMG he DID that?!” And while it’s all ice cream and cakes to focus on the funny aspects, those other ones left me with the impression that Ellison, great writer though he may be, is not someone I would like to run across in a dark alley or even a well-lit convention floor. Or, apparently, on stage in front of hundreds of people.

So, I went about my business. But someone out there faxed Harlan more details and now he knows my name.

Sort of.

He seems to think my first name is Kay.

Well. At least he won’t find my house.

He also wants to “bee-atch-slap” me because I’m a woman of color. Specifically because he helped Octavia Butler launch her career so, as a woman of color, I owe him fealty or something. I dunno. He also seems to think I called HIM a sexist and that I want to “get into it” with him.

Um.

One thing I am annoyed about is that someone told him I called him a sexist. In this discussion, I mentioned Harlan only in the context of him having a story in Realms. I have not said one word about him being sexist or anything else. If I were to care, I would set the record straight with him on that. But I don’t.

I’d also like to point out some other fun aspects of his post. #1 – he seems to think that by naming me as the culprit he’s put my Public Name in a Public Place and that’ll show me! Um. #2 – he hurls several insults at me, but some of my favorites are: I’m in the NWA, a Women of Cuhluh, and a swineherd. Thumbs up! You keep it classy, Ellison!

Now, the bottom line here is that Harlan is convinced that I am specifically after hm. He really, really is. Unlike most egomaniacal wankers on the Internet, I don’t think he has this impression just on GP (that’s general principles for you non-urban folk out there). I think that whoever has been telling him about this discussion has made Harlan think that I and a bunch of other people are specifically mad about him. Him in general, him in Realms, whatever. But the truth is, Harlan is not only not the issue here, he’s barely a footnote.

The cover mockup I posted the other day (provided by Charlotte, for those of you who didn’t know) takes a dig at him, but from what I understand, that was aimed at Realms‘ publisher, not Harlan himself. However, it was a dig and if I’d seen my name over top the words “Senile Meanderings” I’d be pissed, too. So, for calling attention to an image that included a personal attack on someone not even involved in this discussion, I’ll take the blame for that one. If Mr. Ellison wants me to remove that from the post, he’s free to ask.

As to the rest: I have no intention of getting into it with Harlan. I don’t care about him enough. I wouldn’t mind letting him know what was actually said by me as concerns him. Otherwise, I just can’t get excited about it. The orc horde has more important stuff to deal with just now.

But hey, look at that, some famous person knows my name! And posted it on his website. My Google Juice is going to skyrocket now!

Write-a-thon Week 4: BLARG

By:  TempestNews
Write-a-thon Week 4: BLARG

So, the Write-a-thon is chugging along and all and I completed my revision of What Fairy-Like Music Steals Over The Sea and will send it out to Weird Tales shortly. But MAN, this last week was hard!

I don’t remember if I blogged this (I know I Tweeted and FaceBooked it) but I got a call about a month ago from my old job, Laptop, asking if I wanted to return, but in a different capacity: editorial instead of web. I’m now an associate editor whose job includes fact-checking and testing, which is different than what I’m used to but also very exciting.

Luckily, returning to a place I’ve already worked meant that the first week was less about getting to know people and settling in. But I’m learning the fact-checking process for the first time, so it’s been a very full and busy week. Plus, there was the special Clarion West KGB reading and preparing for my salon and… yeah.

But I got the writing done when I could and didn’t burn myself out completely.

Another cool thing that happened last week was an interview I did with Jeff Vandermeer about the WaT went up on Amazon’s Omnivoracious blog. I was thrilled when Jeff asked me to do this and very happy with the way it turned out. Plus, OMG I am on an Amazon blog being interviewed!

In essence, last week was a very good week. Plus, the weekend before I got to see many of my peeps at ReaderCon, which was equally wonderful. My life? Is good.

WTF Authors AGAIN

By:  TempestElsewhere on the Internets
WTF Authors AGAIN

Authors… what the hell is going on? I would say that Twitter has made you insane, but I know some of you have been bringing the foolishness for a while, so obviously it’s not new media that is causing you to act out like a 10-year-old on too much sugar.

Alice Hoffman, get your butt off the internet before you embarrass yourself any further! Posting a critic’s phone number on Twitter? NO. *smacks on nose with paper* Bad author!

Ayelet Waldman, stop damning your critics to hell. It doesn’t reflect well on you. See above about 10-year-olds.

Again, I know that criticism hurts. And hey, complain about your critics all you like… in private to your friends. That’s what I do. That’s what most sensible people do. Your friends will tell you that the critic is an ass and you’ll feel better. But telling it to the world? Just makes you look like an ass.