Wicked Pretty Things and the Erasure of LGBTQ Characters

Last night, my six-year-old and I had a chat. I don’t remember how it came up, but he was talking about people getting married, and how boys have to marry girls. I pointed out that this wasn’t necessarily so, that in some states and many countries, boys could marry boys and girls could marry girls.

Being six, he laughed. “That’s silly. How would they have babies?”

It’s not the first time we’ve had a talk like this. I understand where his confusion comes from. Pretty much every cartoon on TV has male/female relationships only. Every movie he watches, every book he brings home from school… Any nonheterosexual relationship is simply erased.

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.”

Wicked Pretty Things is an anthology of dark fairy romance … but apparently editor Trisha Telep assumed that meant straight romance only, going with the default erasure of any “nontraditional” relationships.

Verday later posted a response in which Telep apologized for causing offense, and said in part, “I sincerely regret the sequence of events which has led to Jessica Verday’s story ‘Flesh Which Is Not Flesh’ being excluded from the forthcoming anthology Wicked Pretty Things. This has been the result of a misunderstanding on my part which is entirely regrettable … I fully support LGBTQ issues.”

I understand and believe that Telep meant no harm. That it was a mistake, not intended to be hurtful. But it was hurtful.

Other authors such as Seanan McGuire, Lisa Mantchev, Lesley Livingston, and Karen Mahoney have pulled their stories from the anthology. Melissa Marr asked that her name not be used to promote the project (she had provided a cover blurb Correction: they were apparently describing the anthology as including stories with a “Melissa Marr-ish slant.”) Ann Aguirre pulled her story from another of Telep’s projects.

Running Press responded in an article titled The Misinformation Age, saying, “Third-party error and miscommunication went viral and led to the spread of untrue accusations of intolerance and censorship.”

Where exactly are these untrue accusations? I’m not aware of any lies in Verday’s post, or in the posts by the other authors involved. Is intolerance an inappropriate word to describe an editor who says “No gay love allowed,” even if it was a misunderstanding?

More importantly, why was this an issue to begin with? The publisher may have disavowed responsibility for Telep’s actions, but why did Telep immediately assume that a story in which two male characters were in love would be unacceptable?

Pulling a story from an anthology is scary. You risk alienating editor and publisher both, not to mention turning down a paycheck. You worry about appearing unprofessional. And you wonder if you’ll find another home for the story you worked so hard on…

I’ve been thinking about this a lot, and I’d like to extend an offer to any author who pulled his or her story from one of Telep’s projects as a result of this incident.

  1. If you have not already found a home for your withdrawn story, I would be happy to read it.
  2. If I like the story (and knowing most of the authors involved, I suspect I will), I’ll offer $100 up front to publish it here on my blog.
  3. Each story will include a donations link. Once the initial $100 has been covered, further donations will be split 50/50. Half will be paid to the author, and the other half will be donated to a LGBTQ-friendly cause.
  4. If I publish multiple stories, I will look into putting together an e-book collection of those stories, with profits again being split between the authors and a LGBTQ-friendly cause.

I get about 2000 unique readers each day, which is comparable to (or in some cases better than) the sales for a number of the anthologies out there. That said, I’ll certainly understand if the authors choose to look elsewhere. It sounds like Verday has already found another home for her story, which is great. My offer is not time-limited.

I am not trying to poach authors from Running Press. However, I do want to support and thank those authors who’ve chosen to publicly state that the erasure of non-straight characters and relationships is not okay. One way I can do that is by offering a home for those stories.

Links

A few links for your Saturday morning…

Cat Valente on e-book pricing.

C. E. Petit on the Google Books Settlement.

A Dreamwidth post which talks about the politics behind the DDoS attacks on LiveJournal (via Sherwood Smith).

Tobias Buckell on his first year of selling his e-published short fiction collection Tides from New Worlds. (Lots of data and graphs here.)

Why your Self-Publishing Service Probably Didn’t Cheat You, from Writer Beware.

And finally, Jim C. Hines’ Fundraiser for Rape Crisis Centers, which has raised more than $700 so far. If we pass $1000, I’ll pick one winner and give him/her a cameo in Libriomancer.

First Book Friday: Author Roundup

I’m making this list for my own purposes, as well as for anyone who might have missed some of the older First Book Friday posts. My thanks to everyone who’s participated.

Submission guidelines for First Book Friday are posted here. I’m also open to recommendations if there’s someone you’d like me to invite … with the understanding that the REALLY big names are less likely to have time for an unpaid guest blog post, so you can suggest Terry Pratchett if you want, but it probably ain’t gonna happen.

First Book Friday Authors:

  1. Jim C. Hines
  2. Joshua Palmatier
  3. Lisa Shearin
  4. Tobias Buckell
  5. Lynn Flewelling
  6. Marie Brennan
  7. Harry Connolly
  8. Alma Alexander
  9. Laura Resnick
  10. John Levitt
  11. Alyx Dellamonica
  12. Seanan McGuire
  13. Martha Wells
  14. David Anthony Durham
  15. Chris Dolley
  16. Laura Anne Gilman
  17. Rachel Aaron
  18. Diana Pharaoh Francis
  19. Sherwood Smith
  20. Kelly McCullough
  21. Jaleigh Johnson
  22. Pamela Dean
  23. Erik Scott de Bie
  24. Mark Terry
  25. Lynne Thomas
  26. Anton Strout
  27. Peter V. Brett
  28. Mindy Klasky
  29. Cindy Pon
  30. Gini Koch
  31. Elizabeth Bear
  32. Sean Sweeney
  33. Catherynne M. Valente
  34. Deborah J. Ross
  35. Kristen Britain
  36. Stephen Leigh
  37. Chaz Brenchley
  38. Kat Richardson
  39. Mette Ivie Harrison
  40. Bradley Beaulieu
  41. Karin Lowachee
  42. Kari Sperring
  43. Tansy Rayner Roberts
  44. Michael R. Underwood

Thursday Miscellany

LiveJournal has been hit by repeated DDoS attacks lately, which has been incredibly frustrating. I’m not leaving LJ – I’m not about to give the hackers the satisfaction. That said, for those who might be missing their daily fix of Jim-babble, my blog is hosted on my site, complete with an RSS feed, and is also mirrored at Dreamwidth. But I’m a-staying on LJ, too.

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Folks have now donated more than $600 in the Fundraiser for Rape Crisis Centers! Go us! So in addition to an ARC of The Snow Queen’s Shadow, I’ll be picking another winner to receive an autographed copy of Goblin Tales.

Any suggestions for a third prize if we reach $1000 in donations?

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From an e-mail exchange with Pat Rothfuss.

Jim: At ConFusion next year, I plan to eat your heart and claim your authorly power for myself. I just thought it polite to give you a heads-up.

Pat: Ha! You fool! I keep my power in my pancreas! Nobody ever eats that…

Jim: Dude, I’m diabetic. Stealing your fully-functional pancreas would be a double-win for me!

So when you come to ConFusion next year where I’m toastmaster and Pat is GoH, if you see me happily dining on pancreas, now you know why.

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Finally, from the Department of Unexpectedly Awesome, I present LEGO + McDonalds + Podracing, created by GeekyTom. Only one picture, but worth clicking the pic for a close-up.

Book Reviews: Buckell, Mallett, Mantchev, Strout

Despite multiple Internet-related SNAFUs, the Rape Crisis Center Fundraiser has raised $430 in the first 24 hours. Thank you all for the donations and the links. Another $70 and we’ll reach the first bonus prize!

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When I was at ConFusion this year, I received a copy of The Executioness [Amazon | B&N | Mysterious Galaxy] by Tobias Buckell. This is a novella-length work, and shares a world with another novella by Paolo Bacigalupi, a world in which magic is outlawed, as its use leads to the spread of deadly bramble. It’s a great setup, as is the premise of the story: Tana’s home is attacked by a neighboring power. Her husband and her father (an executioner) are killed, and her children taken. So she takes up her father’s axe and hood and sets out to save them, beginning a quest “that will change lives, cities, and even an entire land, forever. A quest that will create the legend of The Executioness.”

There were a few times the story felt a bit rushed, and I could easily see this being a novel-length work. But I liked it a lot (though the cover art, while beautifully done, is a bit eye-rolling with the exposed midriff and leg). I like the way Tana’s legend spreads, the way she uses that and learns to take advantage of the fact that women are so often ignored in these conflicts. And without spoiling things, I felt that the ending worked well.

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I’ve never read Frazz, but I met Jef Mallett at A Rally of Writers over the weekend, and picked up a copy of Frazz 3.1416 [Amazon | B&N | Mysterious Galaxy].

Talking to Mallett, he came across as the kind of writer I want to be: he genuinely listened to everyone who came up to talk to him, was generous with his time and advice, and just came across as a really nice, down-to-earth guy. I’m happy to say his comics are much the same: smart and funny, and reading his book just made me feel good. I’ll definitely be picking up more.

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I’ve been wanting to read Lisa Mantchev‘s YA fantasy Eyes Like Stars [Amazon | B&N | Mysterious Galaxy] ever since it came out. This is another book with a great premise, taking place within the Theatre Illuminata, a magical theatre where “the characters of every play ever written” live and perform. Beatrice Shakespeare Smith (Bertie) was born in the outside world, but was raised in the Theatre. Throughout the course of the book, she must prove her worth to the Theatre, uncover the mystery of her past, and choose between the pirate Nate and the seductive but dangerous sprite Ariel.

The characters are great. Bertie’s fairy sidekicks are highly amusing. Ophelia was another favorite, complex and tragic (per her script, she’s constantly running off to drown herself).

My only complaint is that the Theatre, which is supposed to include all plays ever written, seems limited to European and American works, and is heavily weighted toward Shakespeare. But overall, Mantchev takes a great idea and turns it into a very satisfying story.

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Finally, there’s Anton Strout‘s fourth book, Dead Waters [Amazon | B&N | Mysterious Galaxy]. This time, Simon Canderous is investigating the death of a university professor and former FOG (Fraternal Order of Goodness) agent, while dealing with budget cuts and relationship troubles.

I really liked seeing more of the Inspectre’s character in this one, and learning about his past. The central mystery was fun, and similar in tone and action to what you’d expect from Strout’s previous book. I wasn’t as happy with Simon’s relationship tension with Jane, which felt a little forced. But the ending … I don’t want to spoil it, but I’m very interested to see how Simon adjusts in the next book. Like previous books, it’s a fun, light read.

Fundraising for Rape Crisis Centers

Donations as of 4/30/11: $1553

April is sexual assault awareness month.

Last year, I ran a fundraiser that raised more than $1500 in donations to various rape crisis centers. I would love to see if we can break $2000 this year.

Michigan law appears to prohibit raffles, so I’ll once again be using the unraffle model, giving away an advance review copy of The Snow Queen’s Shadow [Amazon | B&N | Mysterious Galaxy].

I am asking you to make a donation, either to RAINN or to your local rape crisis center. RAINN has announced that donations made at http://www.rainn.org/mickfoley during the month of April will be doubled, meaning your donation goes twice as far. Many places will also allow you to donate online. But donations are not required to enter the drawing.

To enter, all you have to do is e-mail endrape@jimchines.com. If you do make a donation, please mention that in the e-mail and let me know how much you gave. I don’t care if it’s $1 or $1000, and it makes no difference to the drawing, but I’ll be tracking and posting how much we’ve raised.

The winner will be drawn at random from all entries on April 30. One e-mail per person, please.

For every $500 raised (up to $5000), I’ll throw in an additional drawing for other prizes.

  • First Bonus Prize ($500): An autographed copy of Goblin Tales
  • Second Bonus Prize ($1000): A cameo role in Libriomancer
  • Third Bonus Prize ($1500): The first three books in my princess series (autographed, of course!)

If you’d like to spread the word, you can copy and paste the following into your blog, which will add a smaller version of the image above and a link back to the original post. Please feel free to modify as needed, and thank you.

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A few statistics:

The Sexual Victimization of College Women, Page 10: “Over the course of a college career — which now lasts an average of 5 years — the percentage of completed or attempted rape victimization among women in higher educational institutions might climb to between one-fifth and one-quarter.”

World Health Organization report on Violence Against Women: “In a random sample of 420 women in Toronto, Canada, 40% reported at least one episode of forced sexual intercourse since the age of 16.”

Prevalence, Incidence and Consequences of Violence Against Women Survey, page 3: “1 of 6 U.S. women … experienced an attempted or completed rape.” (14.8% reported completed, 2.8% reported attempted only.)

On Robin Sullivan’s Author Comparison

Several people have e-mailed me about Robin Sullivan’s Midlist Author Comparison, wherein she compares my writing income to that of e-published author David Dalglish.

Tangential disclaimer: back in January, I pointed out some errors in Sullivan’s guest post at J. A. Konrath’s place. She recently responded that the errors were part of Konrath’s introduction, and were his mistakes, not hers. Konrath’s post was edited within 24 hours of my post, but looking at it now, it does appear that the mistakes I pointed out are Konrath’s, not Sullivan’s. My apologies to Sullivan for that.

Sullivan’s new post has its own erroneous details, like “Thomas Buckell’s” survey on advances, or my book “Step Sister Scheme” being book #2 of the Faery Taile Project. But the numbers she gives regarding my writing income look correct. I assume the numbers she cites for Dalglish accurately reflect his self-reported sales as well.

Her conclusions:

  • “Jim’s six books has taken him 4 ½ years and he still is not earning a living wage. His income is impacted substantially by his foreign sales … and without that his income would be dismal …”
  • “David’s six books took 1 year to get to market and while his income initially appeared to be modest within 10 months he has grown to a substantial six-figure income that certainly would classify as a ‘living wage’ … if the current trends for both of these authors continue there will be a significant gap with David outperforming Jim by a substantial margin.”
  • From her post at Absolute Write, “It took Jim 4 years to release six-books and he can’t make a living wage on his writing. David Dalglish has been at it less than a year and gone from making a few thosand a month to making a six-figure income.”

I initially planned to ignore the post. I’m getting more and more bored by the “Indies vs. Traditional” thing. I’ve got a friend whose updates have turned into nothing but advertisements of his own books, retweets of other self-pubbed authors, and slams on commercial publishing. It’s tiresome.

My guess is that people who want to believe Sullivan’s conclusions will do so. But here are some of my thoughts as I read her post… 

  • If Dalglish’s numbers are correct, then he and his books are doing quite well, and I’m happy for him and his success.
  • A comparison of two individuals doesn’t do much from a statistical standpoint (though I recognize the difficulty in gathering larger samples of this sort of thing).
  • Sullivan’s conclusions are based in part on the assumption that both Dalglish and myself are representative of the “midlist.”
  • Her analysis of Dalglish’s data appears to omit a few months.
  • Her projection of Dalglish’s future income assumes his February/March sales rate will continue.

Some of her comments about commercial publishing also jumped out at me:

  • “Typically when published through a traditional publisher a book can take 15 – 18 months to be released and they generally stagger offering from an author at 12 month intervals. For those who write a great deal this can be problematic.” Counterexamples: see Seanan McGuire, Jay Lake, Elizabeth Bear, and many others.
  • “[I]ndustry standards are that only 20% of authors earn out their advances so in many cases the advance is the ONLY money they will see.” More statistics without citations. If she’s correct, doesn’t that imply that 80% of traditionally published authors end up with more money than if they were getting a strict per-book rate?
  • “The traditionally published author will get an advance but it is woefully small … I’ve done a ton of research on this and it really hasn’t changed much over the years but generally ranges from $5,000 – $10,000.” She only cites Buckell’s survey … but that survey appears to contradict her numbers if you read past the section on first novel advances.

Draw your own conclusions.

New Books!

No First Book Friday post this week, I’m afraid. So I figured we could do New Book Friday instead.

Oof. As it turns out, I know an awful lot of people who write books! I know this list is incomplete, too. I got in trouble for that the last time I posted a new books list, so if you have a book out and I didn’t include you, I’m not being deliberately exclusive. My brain cannot keep track of all the books.

So, anyone read any of these yet? Any you’re particularly looking forward to? And of course, feel free to add more new book suggestions in the comments!

Clicking the covers will take you to an excerpt/preview of the book, where available. (Making this one of the most link-heavy posts I’ve done in ages. I hope y’all appreciate how much work I do for you!)

Deathless [Amazon | B&N | Mysterious Galaxy] by Catherynne M. Valente.

The Shattered City [Harper Collins Australia] by Tansy Rayner Roberts.

The Woods [Amazon | B&N], an e-book from Stephen Leigh. (Also, B&N really needs to work on their search algorithms!!!)

Con and Conjure [Amazon | B&N | Mysterious Galaxy] by Lisa Shearin.

Faerie Winter [Amazon | B&N | Mysterious Galaxy] by Janni Lee Simner.

Fury of the Phoenix [Amazon | B&N | Mysterious Galaxy] by Cindy Pon.

Kat, Incorrigible [Amazon | B&N | Mysterious Galaxy] by Stephanie Burgis.

Rage [Amazon | B&N | Mysterious Galaxy] by Jackie Morse Kessler.

Shady Lady [Amazon | B&N | Mysterious Galaxy] by Ann Aguirre.

Nascence (17 stories that failed and what they taught me) [Amazon | B&N], an e-book by Tobias Buckell.

The Karate Kid

INT. SHOT, TYPICAL HOLLYWOOD OFFICE.

WILL and JADA SMITH are talking with director HARALD ZWART about remaking The Karate Kid. 

WILL
We’ll get Jackie Chan to play the Miyagi character, and our son Jaden will play the kid.

HARALD
Jaden’s a bit young, don’t you think?

JADA
His character will be twelve years old. We want to set the movie in China, but the plot will follow the 1984 movie, with eastern healing techniques, a fancy kung fu move at the end–

HARALD
So we’ll start out with Jaden’s character having trouble with some local kung fu bullies. The problems escalate, and he ends up surrounded by these kids, who start pounding him. Enter Jackie Chan.

JADA
Who proceeds to beat the crap out of a bunch of 12-year-olds!

HARALD
Um…

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The Karate Kid surprised me with that scene. Jackie Chan made it work. In typical Chan style, he deflects the kids’ attacks against each other, allowing them to be the ones to beat themselves up. I was impressed with how they handled that.

Overall, I thought the remake was pretty good. I liked the original story, and this one stayed pretty close to the 1984 version. I liked the restaging of the movie to China. And Jaden Smith is a very charismatic actor.

But in some ways I think the film suffered for being a remake. I kept comparing it to the original, and there were areas where the new film came up short. A few examples (spoilers follow):

  • Mr. Miyagi was a decorated soldier who lost his family in the war, and spent one night each year getting drunk and mourning that loss. Mr. Han’s family was killed in a car accident, and he spends every day rebuilding that car so he can destroy it. Much as I like Jackie Chan, I thought Mr. Miyagi’s backstory was much better.
  • We see Daniel LaRusso practicing the crane technique which he eventually uses in the tournament. The reflection technique we see in the remake is described as something that took a lifetime of practice and mastery to achieve, and we only see Dre Parker trying it once on his mother. Yet he successfully uses it in the tournament.
  • In the tournament, Daniel is taken down by an illegal attack to the knee. Master Li tells his student to break Dre’s leg, which doesn’t make sense to me. Leg bones are strong. We see the kid repeatedly elbowing Dre’s leg (which was disturbing to watch), but failing to break it. If you want to take someone out of competition, try going for the foot or hit a joint.

The kids’ ages changed another aspect of the film for me as well. In both movies, our bullies are taught by a very bad man. But in the 1984 version, these were high school students: older and better able to make their own choices.

I’m not saying 12-year-olds aren’t responsible for what they do, but at that age, the abusiveness of their teacher (Master Li) becomes much more troubling: both the way he treats his students and the fact that he’s teaching little kids to be so vicious. As a result, I really wanted to see the parking lot scene (i.e., Jackie Chan unleashing some whoop-ass on Li), and while I understand why that scene might not fit, it left me dissatisfied with the ending.

You know most of Li’s students will be back in his class the next day — they’re kids, and in most cases, I imagine their parents will make them go back. What’s he going to do to them after their “rebellion” at the tournament?

Summary: A pretty good movie, but I like the original better. Jaden Smith was great. Chan … the script didn’t really play to his strengths. Liked most of the changes from the original, but the younger ages made the movie much more disturbing in some respects. 3.8 fire spiders out of five.

OTW Blog & LEGO M.A.S.K.

Goblin Tales [Amazon | B&N | Lulu] picked up reviews at SciFiChick (“This must-read collection…”) and Romantic Times (“…a fabulous introduction to Hines’ writing, his world of goblins, and his world of Libriomancy all in one — who can pass up a 3-fer?”)

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A month or so back, I was invited to write a guest blog post for the Organization for Transformative Works. Here’s a sneak peek:

I’ve seen the whole spectrum of opinions, from “Fanfiction is the Devil’s Prose!” to “Fanfiction is so much better than that commercial dreck.” I don’t buy either view. Fanfiction is fanfiction. Some is brilliant. Some is abysmal. Fanfic authors sometimes get criticized for not writing commercially, but that makes as little sense as criticizing a fantasy author for not writing fortune cookies. For most of us, we write what we love, and we do it because we love it.

Full post is here.

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Finally, does anyone else remember M.A.S.K., an 80s cartoon and toy line about vehicles and buildings with hidden weapons, concealed mini-vehicles, and also lots of masks? Orion Pax (the same individual who built a transforming Optimus Prime from LEGO) has been working on LEGO M.A.S.K., including a working version of Boulder Hill, the good guys’ HQ.

We had these toys! I remember playing with this set. This blows my mind. Click here or the thumbnails for the full photo set.

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