My Final Word on LLD Press
It’s disconcerting sometimes to realize how many people read this blog. There’s a strange kind of power online … the power to spread information, to get help for those who need it, to challenge unacceptable behavior, and so on.
When I stir something up online, I feel obligated to follow up. I raked Library of the Living Dead over the coals at the start of the week based on their editor’s announcement. When their story changed, I felt like I should share that new information with the same people who saw the initial post.
It just seems like the right thing to do. It’s only fair to get the corrected info out there, and this blog reaches a lot more people than the LLD forums. Except that things kept changing…
This is my final update, and if things change again, I don’t care. I’m done with these guys. So for clarity, here’s everything I know.
1. LLD canceled their LGBT zombie anthology. The editor posted an announcement saying, “It is with deep regret that I must inform you that the publisher has pulled the plug on this anthology. It seems that homophobia had reared its ugly head..NOT from the publisher, but with some authors that are contributers to the publisher.” (This announcement has now been deleted, but is cached here.)
2. I and a few others posted about this. In my case, I was quite pissed off at the idea of letting bigots kill a cool project, and didn’t hold that back. Dr. Pus, who owns the publisher, posted his explanation. “I was the one who gave the go ahead for the Anthology. But with all the things that are going on in my life right now I didn’t think it all the way through. I became afraid I would upset people by publishing the book. That’s the reason in a nutshell.” Full post here.
3. People were still unhappy. Dr. Pus returned to offer a third explanation here. “The reason I pulled the LBGT Anthology was NOT from complaints from the straight community, it was from complaints from the LBGT community. They were upset that an Anthology written by straight authors could cast a bad light on the gay community … Some of the complaints from my LBGT authors were ‘gays will be displayed in a bad light’, ‘This is a gimmick’, ‘No good can come from straight people writing about gays.'”
4. This morning, I found another announcement on my LJ from Dr. Pus. “I plan on green lighting the GLBT Anthology. My Editor, who you’ve drag through the mud, will be in charge of it. We will accept both gay and staight authors for the Anthology. I trust my Editor. He will present the best of the submissions. No homophobic or slanerous stories will be in the Anthology. If you plan on boycotting the Anthology, be my guest. I am doing this for my support of the gay community. It’s a shame that you have an axe to grind againt the ‘Library of Horror Press’. You are only hurting the authors, not me as the publisher.” Full post here.
So it looks like we’ve come full circle. Lovely.
FWIW, I never called for any boycott. I still think an LGBT zombie anthology sounds like an awesome idea, if handled well. If you want to contribute a story or buy the book, great! If not, I can understand that too. Me, I’m done.
Jason
February 13, 2010 @ 10:13 am
The thing is.. I’m gay and I’ve heard people from the gay community say the same things that he is claiming, whether or not it is true. I tried a hand at writing several years ago and wrote some short stories and what not and was told b/c I’m a male that I should not be allowed to write lesbian fiction. If these protesters want to be fair, they should state that GLBT people cannot write heterosexuals at all. If straight people cannot write gay people, then how can gay people write straight people? Seriously.
The truth behind this at least in my humble opinion is that there are a great, great many of GLBT authors who in all honesty cannot write. I’ve tried various times to read GLBT fiction and I find it insanely lacking in terms of story. In fact, in college I did an Anitated Bibliography for a class where I read countless gay fiction and all of it basically says, “Get yourself a boyfriend and live will be OK.” I think that the GLBT writers are more worried that the stories written by heterosexual writers will be of better quality and out shine their stories. Because I think it’s been proven time and time again that their statement is untrue and that heterosexual people have written some amazing stories with GLBT people and some GLBT writers have written amazing stories with heterosexual people. It is not mutually exclusive.
Jim C. Hines
February 13, 2010 @ 10:22 am
Hi Jason,
I’ve heard that said occasionally — that as a straight white man, I’m not allowed to write non-white or non-straight characters, or whatever. But more often what I hear is frustration that more people aren’t writing that kind of character.
It’s something I want to talk about in more depth, but not right now — not while the conversation would come off as a follow-up to LLD’s issues as opposed to something worth talking about all by itself, if that makes sense?
I do think there are issues of appopriation that are important, and I know the first time I wrote a non-white character I failed all over the place with stereotypes. But my personal feeling is that I get to write whatever I choose. When I screw up, people have every right to call me on it, and they should.
But I’m currently writing a book in which Sleeping Beauty is a non-white lesbian. And really, how boring would my books be if everyone had to look and love the same way?
Thanks for your comment. I’m hoping to write more on this in a week or two, when the LLD stuff has died down.
Ann Marie
February 13, 2010 @ 1:27 pm
Ooooh, I know you’re trying to be done with this discussion, but . . . but . . . it’s about the writing. Does the writing convey the story the character, the insult?
And anyway, where’s the outrage about all these men who dare to write female narrators? Who the heck do they think they are?
Jim C. Hines
February 13, 2010 @ 9:13 pm
You know, I don’t have exact numbers on how many princess books we’ve sold, but I know it’s somewhere in the five figures. With all those people who’ve read the books, I don’t think I’ve seen a single complaint about my right:
1. as a male to write female characters.
2. as a straight man, to write a lesbian character.
3. as a white man, to write a non-white character.
There have been questions and disagreement on how I wrote those characters, in a few cases. But not one saying I shouldn’t be allowed to write them.
Jon Rock
February 14, 2010 @ 3:35 pm
It’s scary enough to write, to try to tell a story without doing a bad job. It’s flat out horrifying to try to tell a good story without stepping on someone’s toes by omission or ignorant handling of X’s.
Writing takes courage. A courageous Y will still write the story if it’s about X, and will try their best to make the Xs believable. A courageous Y will also write the story if it is only about Ys and will not throw a hasty X in to keep people from criticizing them. Whatever you do when writing the other should be done intentionally and not out of fear of being labeled. There is always someone out there to call you a bigot. If your goal is not to get called names, don’t write. If your goal is to entertain as many people as you can with as good a story as you can tell, you know what you have to do.
KatG
February 15, 2010 @ 3:59 pm
So wait, this is very confusing. The guy pulled the anthology because gay authors thought it would lead to homophobia, but neither he nor his editor made that clear, leading it to appear that they were canceling the anthology due to homophobic complaints. Which is what you complained about because you’re against homophobia. And then they still didn’t explain. And now they’re doing the anthology again and expect you to boycott it because they think you’re homophobic? Or just out to get them? What? Well, I guess it’s a learning experience for everybody and you magically resurrected an anthology. Maybe you and the editor and the publisher can have a beer and laugh about it at a convention some day. Or not.
Jim C. Hines
February 15, 2010 @ 4:11 pm
It’s an impressive mess of miscommunication, but I’m done trying to understand it. I’m glad I was able to help bring about the resurrection of a cool-sounding anthology. I’m disappointed that, in the process of getting there, I pretty much lost any faith I might have had in the publisher. But hopefully they’ll still produce a good anthology with some good stories.
Given that they’ve described me as a “hater,” and believe I’ve been dragging their names through the mud, I don’t think that beer is likely.