It was an interesting day to say the least yesterday, as I couldn’t have anticipated SFWA President Cat Rambo threatening a lawsuit over my ask for her to appear as a guest on my youtube show. As I discussed on my periscope, my thought was to talk RPGs and writing — since we both are vocal RPG lovers and could drill down the benefits and drawbacks of using that in our fiction. I clearly said no politics, but Ms. Rambo decided to double down on the political.
Which she’s been doing ever since I came out with my deep journalism on the recent science fiction industry, detailing the very real discrimination against stories written by men. The Pink Mafia or Mean Girls crowd as it’s called has several magazines and anthologies every month that openly advertise their preference of female-written stories, often citing “intersectional feminism” in their submissions requirements. It should be obvious with those in place, what the results would be upon a look into the industry. However, the mere mention of affirmative action on behalf of female writers is enough to send some off the deep end. A discussion on the topic can’t even be had.
When my article came out, I sent it to Ms. Rambo, as she’s in a position of power in the industry as the President of the Science Fiction Writers Of America, and the numbers of published stories by females being so much higher than ones published by males (when the magazines all say there are FAR greater submissions by males) is troubling, as it appears very difficult to get published as a male in the industry — let alone a white one. Instead of having an honest dialogue, Ms. Rambo returned a comment trolling me by calling my extremely hard work “alt-numbers” via an email back. She wrote a second email a few minutes later saying she went through my twitter and is now dismissing ME as a troll — right after she trolled me. As if that very frightening gaslighting wasn’t enough, she then took to twitter to try to discredit my article.
She made a tweet that seems innocuous, and would be were it not for her position of power relative to a humble new indie author, and then what she did with it. Unfortunately, what she did merits removal from the SFWA organization under their rules.
Above is her tweet, which lists a number of markets for short stories. the intention to say that I didn’t put together an accurate sample size of the markets in order to discredit me. Instead of talking to me, saying “add in these markets” (I put in all of the monthly magazines that take open submissions that I could think of), she took her one-sided feud with me to twitter to try to lambast me. This was not the discussion I had in mind certainly, and i would have been happy to add more markets to the analysis.
But the real problem is she then took to the SFWA account — the official Science Fiction Writers of America Twitter, which saves its posts for very real science fiction topics and assistance for authors, to use it to retweet her post to discredit me. She took her personal feud, of which the context matters, and used their main account to try to harm an independent author’s career.
This is a disaster for SFWA’s public relations. What it does is signals that independent free thinking authors are going to be shut down by an organization that labels itself for all Science Fiction writers if they dare step outside the political narratives that a few loud voices have. It says independent authors are not welcome, but more importantly men, whites, and conservatives are not welcome either.
This is where it gets even more political, unless SFWA acts and is consistent with their own rules. Author Vox Day was kicked out of the organization several years ago over this very thing. SFWA actually publicly removed him for using their twitter account for a feud with another author. When asked about it, Vox said, “Actually, it’s worse than that. I didn’t use or have access to @sfwa. I merely used @SFWAauthors.”
If Vox can be removed for using @SFWAAuthors in such a matter, surely using the main account to try to belittle and hurt the career an independent author is worse. I’ve reached out to SFWA’s vice president, Erin M. Hartsorn for comment, but she has yet to reply on this topic.
I’m certain SFWA’s rules that apply to one of their authors will certainly apply to their president. After all, they’re for all Science Fiction writers. It’s not just a political organization, right? If they fail to take action, the thin veil of the extreme politics controlling science fiction may fall off completely.
“Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!!”
Was that you who memed that yesterday? Solid meme.
Most SciFi published in the last 20 years is a mishmash of PC-anything-except-a-white-guy blather.
Even worse, it appears as though most of the wymen authors wrote romance novels while trying to break into SciFi LOL
“She took her personal feud, of which the context matters, and used their main account to try to harm an independent author’s career.”
Exactly how were you harmed? The analysis is correct; you failed to include markets. Did you somehow sustain damages from this? Or is it that your feelings were miffed?
How was I harmed? I had the president of SFWA actively attempting to discredit my reputation. Many of their “qualifying markets” she tried to use the official account to discredit me with don’t accept submissions or aren’t monthly magazines with enough of samples, so it’s disingenuous as an attack anyway.
What matters here is she shouldn’t be taking a political matter of fiction markets and using the SFWA account for it if they are representing all Science Fiction writers as they claim to–it is literally a violation of SFWA rules they have REMOVED members for the club over. The fact that you are criticizing my article instead of addressing that shows there’s really no argument against that. It’s a shameful abuse of power.
So you are saying that someone pointing out that you are wrong “discredits your reputation”?
Honestly, you’re partially right, but you fail to get that the party responsible for the harm is not the one you are currently blaming.
Also, Julie was asking about where you got the data regarding gender and the slush piles. That’s not been answered. The 4:1 ration is foundational to your point and it appears that it was pulled out of your @$$. All you have shown at this point is that from a curated sample of markets (LOL, that you obtained by “asking around”) that women published 14% more stories than men.
I asked specifically about Submission Grinder data, Ryan, not “slush piles in general.” How about not putting words in my mouth, ‘kay?
I believe the 4:1 ratio came from the Cirsova editor himself, so that figure is accurate for that market. Jon will correct me if I’m wrong.
Julie, my apologies, you are correct. I wouldn’t consider Cirsova representative and I believe he said he got the submission grinder information from an undisclosed author.
Given that Jon is a serial liar, I don’t believe anything he says without hard evidence.
… oh for hell’s sake.
You know, she said to the air, I’ve never understood this obsession some people have with hate-stalking authors they don’t like. I can think of many more productive things to do with my time. An occasional drive-by is somewhat understandable, but these every-day attack posts are frankly creepy. I mean, I like Jon and I don’t visit here every day.
…hell, I don’t visit my own blog every day.
Jon’s an attention seeker. So…
I don’t want this kind of attention. It’s not fun. I’d rather just be friends with Cat — I tried to be. She went ballistic on me because she hates me for who I am.
Harassing on twitter for marketing is not ” trying to be friends”.
You might notice a pattern: I’m nice. I talk. Someone is awful to me. I don’t take it. I offer friendship and forgiveness anyway, but I’ve yet to ever receive one apology for the awful way I’ve been treated. In this specific example, I didn’t know Cat other than her having attacked my writing and having read a few of her short stories. She didn’t need to do that. Even when she was looking for reasons to hate me (which is what it was) she never once apologized for treating me like that.
You want me to lay down and accept people being horrific and dehumanizing to me, you’ve demanded that since I’ve been there — and acted that way to me yourself. I show tremendous restraint as it is. You’re getting to the point where you need to apologize to me and stop being such an ass.
>>>Jon’s an attention seeker. So…
So…? You give a person you hate exactly what you think they want? And thus reinforce the behavior you think is bad? So you can keep coming here to excoriate him for “bad behavior.” Which you are reinforcing.
Where I come from we call that “insane troll logic.” You might want to see to that.
I mean he’s right tho Julie. I literally write books so people read them and tell me they’re good. That is literally what I do. lol
Jon, I’ve noticed a pattern, but that’s not it. Look, you don’t seem dumb. Maladjusted, a serial liar, etc… but not dumb. So surely you must know that every histrionic claim you make about someone “lambasting” or “attacking” you is easily verifiable through the magic of the internet. The context is all there.
Twitter date/time stamps don’t lie. You do, a lot, but they don’t.
No I don’t. I have a full testimonials page to document all the attacks on me, most of which were made to me without either knowing the person or any provocation and just the person being completely rude over them knowing who I am on a political level.
Jon, they are not “attacks” if they come after weeks of you harassing them.
They came from my never knowing them. I again reiterate I did not know or ever talk to most these people when they hit me publicly. Stop lying on my page.
In the case of Cat Rambo, that is untrue, it came after weeks of you trolling her.
Try to be an adult Jon.
Now you’re gaslighting. She trolled me first. She kept trolling me. I reached out several times in earnest and nicely.
I don’t know what gaslighting is. You can continue to believe your fantasy, but expect to be called out.
“I had the president of SFWA actively attempting to discredit my reputation. Many of their “qualifying markets” she tried to use the official account to discredit me with don’t accept submissions or aren’t monthly magazines with enough of samples, so it’s disingenuous as an attack anyway.”
1) No, it does not discredit you. It points out a flaw in the data pool of your analysis.
2) It is not a disingenuous attack. You did not offer criteria that the data has to follow – which criteria, I should point out, incredibly narrows your analysis and makes it of little use to the general public.
“What matters here is she shouldn’t be taking a political matter of fiction markets”
Political? You did a data analysis. Are you trying to market it as a political polemic? It certainly doesn’t read that way.
“The fact that you are criticizing my article instead of addressing that shows there’s really no argument against that.”
I will address your article. Your data population is too small a sample, and therefore the analysis does not serve as an accurate representation of the market. Add more to the data population and recalculate. Approximately 500-1000 data points will be required in order for it to have any statistical value.
And no, that’s not criticism. That’s just a bland recitation of the facts.
They are no longer “the arts,” they are “the politics,” particularly secular socialist politics. Some years ago these people adopted the Italian communist Antonio Gramschi’s grand plan, to take over the organs of culture. And they have in great measure succeeded. But what they didn’t plan on is that the real culture went underground and it is fermenting and getting angrier and sharper and truer and more potent. Remember how strong the Polish faith became under the Russians? They’d better watch out because the damn is about to burst.
“dam” I meant, but can’t edit it now
*snort* I think you might have been right the first time. “Tolerance.” They keep using that word. I do not think it means what they think it means.
Jon is clearly an attention whore. He wasn’t getting whatever obeisances he thinks he’s owed by those in traditional publishing, so he feels the need to childishly lash out at them for doing nothing more than rightly pointing out the flaws in his methodology, sour grapes and anecdotal evidence he uses to justify why someone else got a publishing deal instead of him. Instead of just going proud indie and writing whatever the hell he wants, he’d rather piss and moan illogically that an industry, dominated for over a hundred years by white males, is somehow rejecting him because he’s a white mail.
You’re proving my point.
By giving you the attention you obviously so desperately crave? Yeah, I guess I am.
James; partially, he’s also trying to follow the Vox Day model to publishing success without putting in the work.
I am confused, then, as to why he just doesn’t submit his work to Castalia House and have it published there.
He’s a gamma?
lol WOW
I’ve never submitted to traditional publishing, this is categorically false.