Cleolinda everywhere

@lisamantchev: Just got an email from Constable & Robinson... official word that WICKED PRETTY THINGS has been canceled.

(Recap: the absolute nutshell version.)

Earlier this morning, prior to that announcement, Jim C. Hines also made an offer to pay $100 for any of the WPT authors' anthology stories and post them on his blog, with donations/proceeds going to charity. He does raise the question, "Why did [editor Trisha] Telep immediately assume that a story in which two male characters were in love would be unacceptable?"

Enough people were accusing Telep of being a bigot that I figured people were already asking themselves that question. But actually... I may have gotten an answer to that earlier last week. ( Read more... )

@moirarogersbree: Thank you, #wickedprettythings authors, for making it a little less okay to blame bigotry on the bottom line.


ETA 4/16: I'm now hearing that all comments have been removed from the Publisher's Weekly piece. Since no additional reporting was done by PW itself, they were the only challenge to the assertions made in that post. Too bad, then, that I screencapped the comments on April 5th.

Let's see if LJ will let me post this.

Yeah, this is still going. Last night, domynoe pointed me to Twitter:

@SaundraMitchell: Hey @PublishersWkly since Christopher Navratil is upset the authors didn't contact him how about providing an addy? It's not on their site!

@SaundraMitchell: And nice reportage! Extremely balanced. Why didn't you talk to any of the authors involved? @PublishersWkly

@SaundraMitchell: For any author who got the "Please come back to our anthology" letter from R&P I DIDN'T authorize that quote and my story remains withdrawn!


So I'm sitting here going, "letter with unauthorized quote whaaaaaaat," and then I start getting messages from a few different writers. Some of whom are extremely frustrated at the "double dealings" going on and the way Jessica Verday is being treated. So. Some information has been passed on to me. Like a copy of the contract. ( Read more... ) 

Just as I was about to hit post: Kaiden Blake talks about why this is important in the first place, plus a story from one of his fans.

ETA: Saundra says, "I am pleased to say that they have retracted my quote from their letter and offered a wholehearted apology, which I have accepted. On that front, at least, I feel that they've behaved admirably and I thank them for that."

I'm in the middle of situation-in-progress emails so I don't have anything solid yet, but things may be headed for a turnaround. More when I find out.


ETA: @francescablock: "f it no more pretty wicked things for me. i'm withdrawing."

ETA: With thanks to gwyd: Seanan McGuire's explanation on 3/28 as to why she pulled her story.

Since LJ is, in fact, staying up for five seconds: an entry that didn't go through this morning.


We have some Wicked Pretty Updates. It was about to die down, and then it took a hard left turn onto WTF Street. ( Read more... )

I'm going to go ahead and post this, because I need a datestamp on it that isn't "April 1st." However, I am also exhausted, so this is going to be short.

(Catch up on the situation.)

There is, in fact, a formal apology from Trisha Telep (see ETA). The weird thing is that it was buried in the comments of Jessica Verday's blog on 3/25, and no one seems to have noticed it until just the other day. (After I heard, I was waiting for Livejournal to come back up to mention it.) It may have been missed because--well, number one, it was buried in the comments, but number two, Telep's initial light-hearted apology was posted under her own name, and this one was signed by her, but posted under "Constable Robinson" (the publisher in conjunction with Running Press). I don't know. However, I had been saying over and over, "Where is a serious response?!" There it is.

Nonetheless, both posted today: Andrew Smith is joining Ann Aguirre in dropping out of Brave New Love; Stacia Kane is dropping out of The Mammoth Book of Ghost Romance. I feel like there was something else I was going to add a couple of days ago; if I remember, I'll ETA it.

Internets, there was a lot of jackassery today. It's kind of impressive.

The Wicked Pretty Things imbroglio: Jessica Verday explained that she was pulling out of the YA anthology because she was asked to make a story with a male/male romance into a male/female romance. No problem with the actual content, violence or language; just make one of the characters a girl. Verday said AW HALE NAW (I may be paraphrasing here). ( SHENANIGANS )

So. It is time to catch up.

First of all, I have taken Betsy (my previous computer, lost to the Compocalypse) to the Data Resurrectionist, and he says that the OS (which is pretending not to exist) isn't just the problem--some of the files are corrupted as well, perhaps 10% of them, but he'll retrieve what he can. God knows how much this will cost. Footnote-writing takes on a new urgency. I wanted to have the Vampires e-book out before Eclipse, but then, I also wanted it done before last Christmas. This is something else entirely.

Meanwhile, the asshole kids down the street (we are pretty certain) have now started tampering with my stepfather's tires, creeping up to our yard and cutting off one stem valve at a time (you know, where you pump air into the tire). It costs $30 to replace a stem--and that's if you notice it. That's if your tire has helpfully gone flat while your car is still in the driveway, which is not what happened last week--rather, my stepfather was out on the interstate when the tire gave up the ghost. He could have had a blowout, could have crashed, could have been seriously hurt. As it was, the tire had to be immediately replaced. For $300. Which we so totally could afford right now.

Yeah. The police have been called. And if you're reading this, assholes, this particular officer's mother used to work with my stepfather. They know each other. He's taking it seriously. So these four tire-slashing shenanigans have been documented by the cops. When you get caught, you're going down for all of them, and your asshole parents who won't rein you in--who deny that you threw bricks onto our patio and left a ladder to climb over our fence and rang our doorbell at all hours even though we saw you running back to their house--are paying for all of it. Yeah, YOU. I hope you're reading this and you DO recognize yourself and CUT IT THE FUCK OUT. I don't care if you're fourteen. Hope you enjoy juvenile detention.

So... um. Meanwhile!

Sam has gotten his summer cut!


Speaking of which, I think I must have tripped over the dogstacle course that is our house and hurt my right foot--maybe landed on my toes or the ball of my foot weirdly, or too hard--because it's been bothering me since two Wednesdays ago. Basically, since the funeral. And I've been limping a little. It doesn't feel like the bones are the problem--maybe I've pulled a muscle or a tendon? I don't know. It doesn't hurt very badly, but enough to be a pain in the ass. Well, figuratively.

A quick way to catch up on my Tumblr: The infinite-scroll photo collage archive.

Let's have a little linkspam: ( Read more... )

Watched the extended Goblet of Fire on ABC Family last night while I was noodling around--come on, how could I resist? ( Surprisingly, the following paragraph is about Ralph Fiennes )

Meanwhile, I'm going to try to cut down a bit on the amount of linkspam in each entry, if only to give myself a bit of a break. I need one anyway, and it's a tough time of year, etc. I'm probably not going to succeed at cutting back, but I'm going to try.

From ppyajunebug: "I was wondering if you could maybe put helpvera in your next linkspam? It goes to a great cause, and the objects in the auction are absolutely amazing, particularly for sci-fi/fantasy fans, or those who love handmade items." In fact, I just saw this headline: Sci-Fi Authors, Fans Rally to Support Struggling Publisher.

( More linkspam! )

God, my jaw is killing me (left side). Tension, I guess. Anyway, Sister Girl came home from the podiatrist and now she has a "flayed Achilles tendon," so I'm pretty much just waiting for the other shoe to drop and fall on my head (so to speak). Mom's foot's doing reasonably okay, though.

Alabama Mayor Charged With Fraud; Mayor arrested on bribery, other charges; Birmingham Mayor Larry Langford enters not-guilty plea, is released. Given that this is the same mayor who wanted to spend a shitload of money nominating Birmingham FOR THE OLYMPICS (as if we even had enough hotels to deal with that) and moved a downtown dome-building project OUT TO THE DOG TRACK to benefit his cronies, I am pleased by these developments.

( More linkspam )

Meme I saw a few people doing today: 10 Things I've Done That You Probably Haven't.

Of course, with this many of y'all around, someone here probably has.

(The key to filling out this meme: be really, really specific.)

( Man, my life was so much more interesting in college )

So. Massive catch-up linkspam. Watched the Eliot Spitzer resignation press conference (well, "conference"; he didn't take any questions. Didn't actually seem contrite, either); nearly finished with the prostitution section of Mayhew's London Underworld. Watched American Idol and its 2000 mentions of Horton Hears a Who; did not think Jim Carrey had any dignity left to lose, but was proven wrong. Lexicon saga still ongoing. Also, my poor grandmother has come down with shingles, woe.

Scientology Seeks Restraining Order Against Anonymous. Just a note: the next wave of protests is scheduled for Saturday. Keep your eyes open and be safe, guys, if they're really trying to set you up the firebomb.

From Fandom Lounge and a few of y'all as well: "Melissa Kern, a very well-known organizer in the Lord of the Rings fandom in Atlanta has been diagnosed with Lou Gehrig's disease, or ALS. Her husband has started a petition to have her cast in the upcoming Hobbit movies as an extra, since the typical ALS survival rate beyond a few years is very low. Information can be found here. There are already 1,000 signatures on the petition, including some people very well-known in Tolkien fandom, such as Ted Nasmith, Daniel Falconer, and Peter S. Beagle. Thanks everyone for looking."

ETA: No new free (i.e., ad-free) LJ accounts. More in the 6A Cornfield post discussing the actual LJ News post, which neglected to mention this fact.

( Moar linkspam )