Speaking of Preggo...

I am officially in my second trimester. Other than that, not much to report: I'm beginning to lose my waistline, such as it ever was, but I'm still fitting into my clothes. My breasts are less tender, but the nipples are more sensitive, and also darker (but not dark. I am a pale, pale person). I haven't gained much weight if at all. I am not so tired, but still hungry all the time. I feel strange vague twinges and aches in my pelvis on occasion. Sometimes I sleep well and sometimes I don't. Sometimes I dream and sometimes I don't.

(no subject)

Maybe in ten years, then. Ten years seems to be my window for mellowing out.

While I'm running my mouth off this week...

I can't support the girlcott of Seal Press.

First of all, an admission: I've got work forthcoming this summer in a Seal Press anthology. So maybe I'm biased.

But I don't think so. (I've already been paid for that work, after all :P)

It's more that I think this call for a consumer girlcott a case of "the perfect is the enemy of the good." And the good Seal Press does *still* outweighs the bad, in my eyes. (YMMV. And that's fine. I'm very carefully trying to speak only for myself, here.)

This is not to mitigate, much less excuse, the absolute untrammeled and deeply offensive stupidity that their editorial and publicity team have spread over the blogosphere in recent weeks. Not at all.

But at the same time, I think of the problems I have had with, oh, other small presses who shall barely remain nameless here. I don't think they're any better -- they're just not *quite* stupid enough to run their mouth off in public. But scratch a writer who's worked with them and you'll get an earful. Do we girlcott them, too?

I will never, ever bring a book proposal to Press Which Will Remain Anonymous, I'll tell you that. And very much at the cost of my own career (such as it is), believe me.

But I will still buy their books. Because the books, and their authors, deserve a chance, even if the Press is not my friend.

I also feel like there are bigger fish to fry. Bigger publishing fish, for sure.

Calling for an apology from Seal? With you. Calling out their shenanigans? I'm there. Writing them letters expressing how very disappointed and angry I am at their online statements? You betcha. Making those letters public? Yes.

Advocating, supporting, buying the books of, and giving free advice (if desired) to WOC who want to start their own press, or support some of the other independent WOC presses out there (Redbone Press, for example, and if I could find others I would post links here too)? And pointing writers their way (and elseways)? Gladly and then some. Let a thousand flowers bloom.

If book publishing was a well-stocked garden full of endless choices, and not an industry very much in crisis, my perspective might be different. My perspective, I acknowledge, is very much biased, as a former worker in book publishing, as an author, as an editor. And as a lover of all books.

I guess I feel, fundamentally, the same way I do about publishers as I do authors. There are authors who write great books but are crap people. That doesn't make the book unworthy, or deserving of boycott, in my eyes. Same here. Of course, this applies more to fiction than to nonfiction (and thus, my bias is showing), and even less so when it comes to activist works, or works that deliberately trade upon a person's reputation as an activist or suchlike.

Thus, I *will* support the girlcotting of a certain Seal Press *book* that's recently come under fire for possible plagiarism and definite lack of credit to forebears. (Initials: FFF. Author's initials: AM. Vanity searching: foiled, I hope.)

Oh, and I am all for calling out, and for continuing discussion. (Like here, "An Open Letter To White Feminists," for instance.) But the girlcott? Sorry, not on board. It feels too much like cutting off my own nose to spite my face. I certainly understand where others might feel so disgusted by Seal Press' recent antics that they just won't go near their booklist, and that's fine. I get it. I just can't join you.

renksa fconnects the dots

http://www.feministe.us/blog/archives/2008/04/22/today-amanda-marcotte-at-kgb-bar-in-manhattan/#comment-167151

"I was mostly unaware of this issue [Marc*tte-gate] until today. I spent yesterday familiarizing myself with the particulars of “boobgate” aka The Open-Source Boob Project.

[...]

And the response to the criticism (both his, and his supporters) is remarkably parallel to that engendered by what’s happening here.

1. You’re just h8ers! Jealous of what a big name [X]
has in the community (for theferret, it’s the SF
community)

2. You weren’t there when the idea was conceived –
I know that it wasn’t sexism/appropriation] AT ALL!

3. A belief that [X], as a member of a better/more
enlightened community, is above criticism of sexism
or racism

4. And finally, and most profoundly, DEEP ignorance
(or a firm refusal to acknowledge) the culture and
history of the larger society from which the
incident — as much as the proponents would like to
believe — cannot be divorced.

The big difference between that situation and this? Theferret argued and argued and ARGUED but he finally… apologized. And while I don’t think he really gets it (and I continue to think he’s a dick) he did, ultimately, listen. He did apologize. And that’s not happening here.

It needs to."