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rainwatersparkI mentioned in my last post that I was going to try to be on social media more, and that includes trying to blog more. It's hard to explain, but staying at home all the time in 2020 somehow killed my ability to articulate thoughts enough to write blog posts, and I'd like to change that if I can (even though, yes, I'm still at home for the foreseeable future).
Anyway, I'm starting my 2021 blogging journey with...an honestly weird topic, but I guess I Have Thoughts on weird stuff, so...here we go.
It's not often that I blacklist authors; my criteria has generally been only if they write racist/transphobic/etc. content into their books. Sometimes I'll also blacklist them if I've seen them be assholes on Twitter, but I'm not on Twitter nearly enough to witness bad behavior from most authors, so *shrug*.
However. I'm leaning heavily toward blacklisting any authors who support KM Szpara's books.
Tor—an imprint of Macmillan that has generally published a lot of excellent fantasy and sci-fi but has recently started making some questionable acquisitions choices—published Szpara's first novel and marketed it as a deep, insightful commentary on capitalism and consent when...in reality, said book is really a textbook example of slavefic that's commonly found on the internet. The TL;DR for those who don't know what slavefic is: Slavefic features a romantic relationship between a master and slave, featuring nonconsensual/dubiously consensual sex.
Let me get this out of the way first: I don't care what people want to read or write on the internet, but if you're going to sell $20+ hardcovers and tout this as "great literature," then no, I don't think slavefic should be published and sold for profit by a reputable mainstream publisher.
Especially when it's clear that Tor and/or Szpara wants to have their cake and eat it, too, by claiming the book is some "deep critique" of capitalism...while also writing dubcon/noncon sex scenes that are clearly there to titillate rather than to disgust.
And also while hiding from critique by claiming said book is groundbreaking because it's about gay people and it's by a queer trans author.
(And I'm not even going to get into all the race issues inherently involved in slavefic, but yeah...big yikes. As though I needed more reasons to distrust white queer authors.)
And now they're doing it again with Szpara's next book.
I just...the gall? The audacity? Everything about the situation disgusts me. Especially when I think of how many QPOC authors struggle to have their books picked up by Big 5 publishers. Especially when I think about how I, a demiromantic ace person of color who doesn't discuss my gender identity with friends, let alone strangers, for reasons of both safety and privacy, have literally been interrogated about why I write about queer men of color by publishing gatekeepers.
Charlie Jane Anders...I appreciate your nonfiction essays on writing. I really do. But seriously why the fuck did you promote Szpara's book?
Freya Marske, I have no interest in reading your upcoming book after seeing your glowing review.
Emily Duncan, thankfully I couldn't even get into your debut, and I feel no guilt about not giving it another try.
And I'll be watching very closely to see which authors blurb Szpara's next book.
Anyway, I'm starting my 2021 blogging journey with...an honestly weird topic, but I guess I Have Thoughts on weird stuff, so...here we go.
It's not often that I blacklist authors; my criteria has generally been only if they write racist/transphobic/etc. content into their books. Sometimes I'll also blacklist them if I've seen them be assholes on Twitter, but I'm not on Twitter nearly enough to witness bad behavior from most authors, so *shrug*.
However. I'm leaning heavily toward blacklisting any authors who support KM Szpara's books.
Tor—an imprint of Macmillan that has generally published a lot of excellent fantasy and sci-fi but has recently started making some questionable acquisitions choices—published Szpara's first novel and marketed it as a deep, insightful commentary on capitalism and consent when...in reality, said book is really a textbook example of slavefic that's commonly found on the internet. The TL;DR for those who don't know what slavefic is: Slavefic features a romantic relationship between a master and slave, featuring nonconsensual/dubiously consensual sex.
Let me get this out of the way first: I don't care what people want to read or write on the internet, but if you're going to sell $20+ hardcovers and tout this as "great literature," then no, I don't think slavefic should be published and sold for profit by a reputable mainstream publisher.
Especially when it's clear that Tor and/or Szpara wants to have their cake and eat it, too, by claiming the book is some "deep critique" of capitalism...while also writing dubcon/noncon sex scenes that are clearly there to titillate rather than to disgust.
And also while hiding from critique by claiming said book is groundbreaking because it's about gay people and it's by a queer trans author.
(And I'm not even going to get into all the race issues inherently involved in slavefic, but yeah...big yikes. As though I needed more reasons to distrust white queer authors.)
And now they're doing it again with Szpara's next book.
I just...the gall? The audacity? Everything about the situation disgusts me. Especially when I think of how many QPOC authors struggle to have their books picked up by Big 5 publishers. Especially when I think about how I, a demiromantic ace person of color who doesn't discuss my gender identity with friends, let alone strangers, for reasons of both safety and privacy, have literally been interrogated about why I write about queer men of color by publishing gatekeepers.
Charlie Jane Anders...I appreciate your nonfiction essays on writing. I really do. But seriously why the fuck did you promote Szpara's book?
Freya Marske, I have no interest in reading your upcoming book after seeing your glowing review.
Emily Duncan, thankfully I couldn't even get into your debut, and I feel no guilt about not giving it another try.
And I'll be watching very closely to see which authors blurb Szpara's next book.
