[Links]
[links] Link salad is too sweet to be sour, too nice to be mean
SF Signal‘s Mind Meld on how anthologies are put together — In which I am a participant. Worth reading if you want to know more about the anthology sausage factory, or editing short fiction in general.
British Fantasy Society admits ‘lazy sexism’ over male-only horror book — Authors shocked as new horror anthology fails to include any female writers.
Airship Akron leaving for Cuba with bomber escort (1933) — A terrific photo from x planes.
Belatedly, Egypt Spots Flaws in Wiping Out Pigs — Read this piece science fictionally. Some lovely worldbuilding elements here.
The Holy Grail of the Unconscious — Fascinating true story of the Liber Novus of Carl Jung.
Protecting the powerful is a feature, not a bug — Ben Goldacre on British libel laws.
Obama: US Determined to Act on Climate Change — It’s sure nice to have the reality-based community back in the White House. The Republican tendency to visualize the change you want to be may be a great political strategy, as well as a good tool for personal growth, but it collapses like a chocolate teapot in the face of actual facts.
?otD: Shaken or stirred?
9/23/2009
Body movement: 60 minute suburban walk
Hours slept: 6.25
This morning’s weigh-in: 233.6
Currently reading: The Real Wizard of Oz by Rebecca Loncraine
Posted: 5:27 am Wed September 23 2009 |
Where am I?
You are reading the blog of Jay Lake, speculative fiction writer and author of hundreds of short stories, many novels, and winner of the John W. Campbell Award.
Learn more here.
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Drake
September 23rd, 2009 at 5:54 amWhy are people so sensitive. OMG IT LEFT OUT WOMEN. It was as much the authors/editors choice as it was an omission. If it was a female editor/author and they left out men, how many men would complain? What if they released a “Women of Horror” or released volume one as “Men of Horror”. The first, no complaints, the second, WHERE ARE ALL TEH WOMEN.
Cora
September 23rd, 2009 at 5:59 pmThe reason people are so sensitive is because this is not an isolated occurrence but something that happens all the time. Offhand, I can recall three instances in recent times where a supposedly general anthology in the SFFH genres did not include a single female writer and often not a single writer of colour as well (I have no idea if this is the case with the BFS collection). And the excuses of the (male) editors always sound very similar as well. “I’m just looking for good stories and didn’t even notice there weren’t any women in the anthology.” – “There simply are no women in this genre/subgenre, at least I can’t think of any.” – “The women I asked to contribute, both of them, pulled out and so I was left only with men.” At least, the BFS people had the decency to apologize for the omission, which is more than can be said for some others.
A lot of women and people of colour and GLBT people for that matter write SF, fantasy and horror. It’s about time these realities were reflected in genre anthologies. I personally wouldn’t mind an anthology titled “Speculative fiction by straight white men”, because at least such an anthology would be upfront about what it is doing. But an editor putting together a supposedly general anthology, allegedly providing an overview about a genre/subgenre, and then including no women, writers of colour, GLBT writers at all deserves all the criticism he gets.
Anthologies like “SF by female writers” or “Women of Horror” (or similar anthologies for GLBT writers and writers of colour) arise specifically because those writers are often neglected or marginalised by the more mainstream anthologies.
Though supposedly general anthologies that include only women do exist as well. I own both the Mammoth Book of Paranormal Romance and the Mammoth Book of Vampire Romance and in both anthologies there is not a single story by a male writer. Now admittedly a lot more women than men write paranormal romance, but certainly one or two suitable stories by male writers could have been found. There was no outcry that I was aware of about those two anthologies, but then many male writers were probably not all that keen on catching the girl cooties associated with paranormal romance.
Of course, if the speculative fiction community would finally admit that paranormal romance and the romantic end of urban fantasy are part of our genre, the number of women writers in the genre would increase even further.
Jay
September 24th, 2009 at 6:01 amI am going to put my hand in the meat grinder here and point out that so far as editing anthologies of original fiction goes, manuscripts don’t come with ethnic or racial identity attached, and even gender identity is often misleading. It’s often not so simple as looking past the white men for good fiction, because as an editor, I don’t necessarily know the identity of the name on the manuscript. I want to acknowledge it’s also not that simple the other way — this is a small field, and many of us know each other.
Drake
September 24th, 2009 at 10:09 amI remember being really surprised when I found out Kim Stanley Robinson was a man. I thought he was a woman for years after reading the Mars trilogy.
Cora
September 25th, 2009 at 4:31 pmFrom what I’ve seen of the anthologies you edited, you’re not part of the problem. Besides, I assume that if an anthology turned out to be rather testosterone heavy, you actually know more than two women you could ask to contribute.
If this were an isolated occurrence, I don’t think the outcry would have been as big as it is. But this is the third white men only anthology to appear in a fairly short period of time, so people are understandably upset.
Drake
September 23rd, 2009 at 8:53 pmIf the anthologies or collections are meritorious, and then something like this comes up, then more emphasis is put on including works by women (or minorities) based solely on their sex or skin color, rather than merit. It should be taken at face value “this is what I liked” instead of trying to color it with accusations of prejudice.
Cora
September 23rd, 2009 at 9:31 pmHowever, if some editors only ever like stories by straight white men and no one else, there’s a problem. Because women, people of colour, GLBT people all write some very fine speculative fiction. Many of them write stories that are equal to or better than those by straight white men. If no story by one those writers ever makes it into a magazine/anthology, it’s not meritocracy but hidden bias.
Besides, the BFS collection in question was not an anthology at all but a collection of interviews with horror writers. So it wasn’t even an issue of liking a given story, it was just a question of contacting a writer and asking for an interview.
Drake
September 24th, 2009 at 6:09 amIf the author liked those kind of stories, or authors, get over it. It was the author’s discretion what was published, not the general public. Like I said before, if they were doing it based on merit, all this ‘political correctness’ bitching will just make it so work or authors as selected solely on the criteria of race or gender, and not merit.
The guy was clearly going about doing the book based on who he knew wrote fiction, and what he liked. His “casual” omission was just that. Maybe if there were more female authors who wrote fiction that appealed to him, or made an effort to get noticed by the society it wouldn’t have been an issue.
No reason to incite hate because someone who happened to have a certain set of sexual organs or a certain skin color wasn’t explicitly chosen to be represented. It just dilutes further works when someone is chosen not based on merit, but to prevent potential accusations of prejudice.
Cora
September 25th, 2009 at 4:58 pmThere are female horror writers who would have been suitable for this collection. The article Jay linked to lists a few names, including writers as well known as Margo Lanagan, Caitlin R. Kiernan or Tanith Lee and better known than some of the male writers included in the collection (though I have to admit that I’m not a big fan of straight horror and hence do not know all the names).
And while the “but the stories they editor happened to like were all written by men” argument may hold true for anthologies, it cannot really be applied to a collection of interviews with writers. Because it is perfectly possible not to care for a writer’s work and yet find what he or she has to say about the writing process interesting.