Via Jim Hines's LiveJournal entry, Wicked Pretty Things and the Erasure of LGBTQ Characters, a story that makes me so angry and so sad, it's beyond words.
Last month, Jessica Verday withdrew her story from the Wicked Pretty Things anthology after receiving a note from the editor which stated that her story “would have to be published as a male/female story because a male/male story would not be acceptable to the publishers.”
The publisher apparently denied such a bias, and the editor apologized. Whose fault it was and where the misunderstanding (if such it was) occurred is not within the scope of this blogpost. What happened next is. A group of authors pulled their stories from this and other anthologies from that publisher. Now to the awesome part.
My hat is off to him. It's one thing to say, "Oh, it's terrible," and quite another to take such an affirmative step towards a diverse and inclusive community.
Last month, Jessica Verday withdrew her story from the Wicked Pretty Things anthology after receiving a note from the editor which stated that her story “would have to be published as a male/female story because a male/male story would not be acceptable to the publishers.”
The publisher apparently denied such a bias, and the editor apologized. Whose fault it was and where the misunderstanding (if such it was) occurred is not within the scope of this blogpost. What happened next is. A group of authors pulled their stories from this and other anthologies from that publisher. Now to the awesome part.
Jim publicly offered to read any of the stories that had been pulled and had not yet been placed elsewhere, to publish for pay, out of his own pocket those stories he liked, and if there were enough of them, to edit and publish an e-book anthology.
My hat is off to him. It's one thing to say, "Oh, it's terrible," and quite another to take such an affirmative step towards a diverse and inclusive community.
Wow! This is super, what Jim did.
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