Camestros Felapton

FELAPTONL

A round-up on some commentary on the case of Riley v F-and-SF

Some early starts and work pressure have kept me off the internet for the past few days but the issue around the Magazine of F&SF publishing a novella by an ex-member of the UK’s National Front has been ongoing.

One thing notable here at a different level of abstraction is the degree to which some of the most interesting commentary is not on Twitter but on the rival social media service Blue Sky. This new Twitter-like service is currently invite only and messages (“skeets”) are not viewable to non members. Jason Sanford’s Genre Grapevine has a decent round-up here https://www.patreon.com/posts/88237737

The short version is that F&SF’s editor Sheree Renée Thomas received a lot of personal flak for the situation. Writer Christopher Rowe (who I quoted in my earlier post) then got flak for the flak Thomas was getting and other people have got angry that Rowe was getting flak simply because he was pointing out the problem.

Former editor of F&SF C.C. Finlay mounted a defence of Thomas as a person which points the blame towards the long-standing owner of the magazine Gordon van Gelder. Sanford’s piece summarises them better than I would so I suggest reading them there. Sanford also summarises a thread by N.K.Jemisin also points the blame for the current situation towards van Gelder. Jemisin also notes something that has been bothering me about F&SF:

“(Sidenote, I just looked at the barely-functional F&SF website and noticed that she’s not even on the damn masthead. Writer’s guidelines still say Charles Coleman Finlay. He left in 2020. www.sfsite.com/fsf/glines.htm )”

https://bsky.app/profile/nkjemisin.bsky.social/post/3k5qephyymi2e

Jemisin’s link to F&SF is a website is clearly unmaintained and sits as a side URL on the even more defunct “SF Site” (https://www.sfsite.com/ ). However, while that is the link a Google search will take you to, there is a more up-to-date site here https://fandsf.com/ but…the writer’s guidelines still list Charles Coleman Finlay as editor. The whole thing has the air of a failing shopping mall where you can’t tell whether the shops are open or not.

More generally people have pointed out that the person getting the least amount of flak for the current situation is David A. Riley. This is true but also not surprising. He already knows that he isn’t popular with people who don’t like the far right.

I genuinely have some sympathy for the situation that Sheree Renée Thomas finds herself in and sure, even in intense situations people should try to avoid personalising attacks. However, the rest of fandom isn’t going to know about whatever messed up dynamic is going on at F&SF and the person ostensibly making the decisions about what gets published is (normally) the editor.

The whole thing, including the issue earlier in the year about late contracts and the apparently out-of-date website, is weird as hell. The magazine is clearly in decline not just commercially but also in terms of the attention its owner is giving to it. The hypothesis that Sheree Renée Thomas has been placed in a kind of “glass cliff” situation has some merit but obviously, there’s no way of confirming that. We can consider the nature and variety of stories Thomas has published in general and see that David A. Riley’s sword & sorcery stories would be an odd choice for her. However, it would also be a really odd policy choice for Gordon van Gelder. There is an audience for dubiously right-wing sword & sorcery stories out there (e.g. the puppy-adjacent Cirsova magazine is still going) but what money/audience there is for that is already catered for.

Science fiction magazines are struggling in various ways but the Magazine of F & SF appears to be holed under the waterline and sinking before our eyes.

camestrosfelapton

70 responses to “A round-up on some commentary on the case of Riley v F-and-SF”

  1. I wouldn’t say that Sheree Renee Thomas is unlikely to publish sword and sorcery, since she did bring Charles Saunders out of semi-retirement for her Dark Matter anthologies and Saunders definitely wrote sword and sorcery. However, there is a huge difference in quality, popularity and attitude between Charles Saunders and David Riley.

    In general, the sword and sorcery genre is experiencing something of a revival, though there is a growing gap between those who want to take the genre forward and make it more diverse and inclusive (especially since sword and sorcery was a progressive genre in many way both in the 1930s and 1960s/1970s) and those who want to remain in a largely imaginary past with all the bad old attitudes (which often weren’t nearly as bad in the actual old days) with a few “Why must we talk about politics and can’t all get along?” folks stuck in the middle. There are a lot of debates about this going on in S&S spaces on Discord and elsewhere.

    As for why Riley wanted to be in F&SF, it’s likely because of both prestige and pay. Yes, Cirsova and a couple of other rightwing sword and sorcery markets exist and Riley also has his own small press Parallel Universe Publications and published S&S and sword and planet anthologies. However, Cirsova doesn’t pay nearly as well as F&SF nor does it have the prestige and the name.

    Though any prestige associated with F&SF due to its history as one of the top SFF magazines is fading fast, since people are gradually realising that the F&SF that won Hugos and published many classic stories died around 2000 and that the current version is a pale shadow of its former self.

    Liked by 4 people

    • As for the last: I’ve been a big fan of F&SF over the years, from Van Gelder through Finlay through Thomas. F&SF definitely hasn’t been winning Hugos in a while, but it’s been publishing great material throughout (and varied material, from Finlay and on) — just offline, which gets a lot less online attention and very little award recognition.

      I’m very sad to see things in their current state. As Camestros says, I definitely get the sense the magazine is in a state of disrepair, in combination with some long-running chickens coming home to roost. If F&SF falls, it will be a huge loss.

      Liked by 1 person

  2. It’s quite the shame. The mag had gotten a bit more interesting under Finlay and Thomas, but there’s always some white guy gotta screw up good things for everyone else. (I was gonna say “old white guy”, but he’s younger than me! Mind you, that’s still kinda old.) Nobody runs Google searches on potential authors these days, as the bare minimum of due diligence? I’d been reading it on Kindle, so losing it there is going to be a massive blow to them and others.

    So there ya go. Congrats on killing a magazine that’s been running since well before you were born, Gord, by being a bad businessman and having terrible taste in authors.

    Would love to be a fly on the wall in the Rusch/Smith household right now.

    I like that BlueSky is catching on — of course, Twitter is all RWNJ now.

    Nobody’s bothering to give grief to Riley, because fascists gonna fash. Rowe shouldn’t get grief for mentioning a fact, but that’s the world the fashies have created. And Thomas certainly isn’t an NF supporter type.

    Cam, your shopping mall analogy is perfect.

    Liked by 3 people

    • Yes, people aren’t giving grief to Riley beyond “He’s a fascist and shouldn’t be given a platform”, because well, what else should you say about a fascist.

      Meanwhile, Sheree Renee Thomas and Christopher Rowe are getting a lot of undeserved grief.

      BTW, at least until yesterday, there was still an interview with Riley on the Kickstarter campaign for a new S&S anthology and the editor of that anthology is not a fascist (though the anthology is very much a sausage fest).

      Liked by 3 people

  3. I’m old enough to remember 1973… the National Front was “widely regarded as a patriotic and nationalist party” to about the same extent as Gamergate was all about ethics in video game journalism.

    I wouldn’t care to be judged on my own political opinions of fifty years ago… but my political opinions have shifted over that half-century. It’s pretty clear that Riley’s haven’t, much. Perhaps the one note of hope in all this is that Riley is (or was, until this imbroglio) a genuinely obscure figure, so much so that his name didn’t prompt a reaction of “oh no, that guy’s a Fascist”, but just “who?” I mean, I’ve read fairly widely in the horror genre – and dipped my toe in the stagnant waters of Cirsova, come to that – but I’ve never come across him. (I used to know a guy called Dave Riley, but it’s definitely not the same person.)

    Liked by 4 people

  4. My experience with failing malls is that all the existing stores are selling clothing, possibly on consignment, and there’s a “community church” in one of the stores. All the food places and department stores and an place selling anything of actual value have left. (This was the mall near my sister’s place. It has one problem that the city needed to fix, which was traffic control on the ring road around the mall.)

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  5. I don’t understand why Gordon Van Gelder isn’t saying anything or taking some sort of responsibility, especially after C.C. Finlay’s Bluesky thread. He has to know none of this is doing his magazine any good.

    Liked by 1 person

    • I suspect he knows that the more people are online the less they read magazines like F&SF – I can only assume the magazine keeps going through a legacy of subscriptions

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    • Perhaps he believes remaining silent is a better strategy – for him – than admitting to overriding his editors’ decisions and meddling with contracts.

      Liked by 1 person

      • It absolutely is an effective strategy. It limits how many people are going to talk about and pass around the news. And since a lot of the mag’s readers aren’t going to be following the news online that much, they then have less chance of hearing about it at all. The more he speaks up publicly, the more of a Streisand Effect he faces, especially as he’s a much bigger name in the field than Riley. Journalists might get interested and write about it, etc.

        Where staying mostly silent hurts him is in not repairing trust and bridges with BIPOC authors and other marginalized authors who have heard about what’s going on. But he might not care about upsetting and losing chances with those authors or he might think having a respected black woman editor will eventually override any of those issues. Which isn’t fully true, but he might think it.

        And if he’s hoping to attract some of the right wing authors and readers to the magazine, having Riley’s back might help with that, but he doesn’t then have to widely advertise that he’s doing it. So yeah, at least in the short term, it’s sadly an effective strategy.

        Liked by 2 people

        • You seem to be assuming that F&SF’s readers are much less likely to be aware of this controversy than the rest of the SF community. I don’t know of any evidence that’s the case. The main thing that distinguishes readers of the “print” magazines* from the bulk of SF fandom is that they are willing to pay to read short fiction. There’s no reason to believe that they are less online than the average SF reader.

          As a marketing strategy, this seems predestined to fail. One of the outcomes of the Puppy Poo era was the demonstration that the Puppies’ conviction that there was a huge, under-served audience for rightwing-inflected SF was just another one of their delusions. That the whole thing sputtered out so quickly (not to discount the importance of the changes such as EPH that cut down on the ability of slates to skew the results) demonstrated that the number of rightwingers who were willing to put their money where their big mouths are is very small. Very few of them read. (Hell, based on their own statements, it seems evident that most of the Puppy writers don’t read, either.) I find it hard to believe that publishing fiction by actual fascists in his magazine is likely to do anything but cause a large fraction of its current readership to quit in disgust, without bringing in substantial numbers of subscribers to replace them.

          *I put print in quotation marks because as of 2018 (the last year I had the numbers conveniently at hand, from the summary in Gardner Dozois’s 35th and sadly final Year’s Best SF anthology, slightly more than half of the subscriptions to both Asimov’s and Analog were digital; newsstand sales tipped the balance to literal print. I assume this is also true of F&SF, although Van Gelder apparently refused to provide Dozois with the numbers.

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          • Yes, people who get the print version of the magazine are likely to be older fans and less online. But even if they are online a lot, any corner of fandom is not going to be aware of everything going on in news in the field. Millions of “online fans” still don’t even know about the Hugo Puppies controversy. And despite the big HWA blow-up over Riley back some years ago, Brown herself seems to have been unaware of it and Riley’s background. The bulk of readers just go and read the fiction in the magazine; they don’t necessarily scour the Net for news of the magazine itself. The mag issue with Riley’s story is not out yet, it sounds like, so the controversy is being discussed but it’s muted.

            So if Gordon responds, discussion increases, which increases distribution of the news and more people becoming aware of the controversy rather than Net conversations moving on to something else. And if Gordon responds, that’s a full story for any journalist in mainstream media who might want to cover it — something that was a downfall for the Puppies.

            I’m not praising him for doing that let it die down strategy, but it is potentially effective. Gordon saw what happened with Clarkesworld Magazine over the helicopter trans story debacle in 2020 when Neil, who’d been dealing with medical issues when the story came out, handled the response really badly. And he’s had lay low strategies work for him before, including when he’s late paying authors what they’re owed. But whether he responds or not, he does have the “racially charged” situation of a black woman editor publishing the fiction of a British white supremacist, so it may well blow up in his face in this case even if he keeps quiet.

            And even if the strategy does work to make this controversy only run for a short time on the Net discussion front, as I said, that doesn’t mean he’s not burning bridges with BIPOC authors and readers who are aware of the story, as well as other allied readers who are unhappy about it. It’s not a good thing to have happened and is likely to have long term consequences for the magazine.

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            • A lay low strategy is doomed because if this story hadn’t broken now, it would have when the edition with Riley’s story in it came out and the fallout would be even greater.

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  6. The most up-to-date F&SF website is the submission portal: https://fandsf.moksha.io/publication/fsf, which at least lists Thomas as the editor (and also announces that the magazine is closed to submissions once again). The link to the publisher’s website goes to the marginally functional fandsf.com, rather than the thoroughly defunct sfsite sidebar.

    F&SF is carried by Barnes & Noble (as are Asimov’s and Analog).

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  7. Anyway, talking about Blue Sky I found the ultimate take on the situation in which we learn about the real victim in this whole situation:
    https://bsky.app/profile/rsbenedict.bsky.social/post/3k5nrxvgldo24
    RS Benedict
    “Tor publishing honest to god blacklisted me for saying that I think fanfiction is dumb and right now several of their current and former editors are actively arguing that it is okay for a prestigious scifi magazine to publish a card carrying member of a fascist political party. What can I say?”
    Aug 24, 2023 at 7:42 am

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      • She’s so put upon I don’t even know who she is. And don’t want to — I am not even Googling. Probably someone I’ve succeeded in forgetting. Like I’d forgotten Cirsova till this came up.

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        • But I happen to love fanfic and published a zine back in the day. I wrote for others, one of which Diane Duane also appeared in, well into her professional career. Quite a thrill, seeing the name which was on books I owned on the title page with mine.

          And “Crow and Kin” is a fine example of group fanfic, isn’t it?

          So feh on her.

          Liked by 2 people

        • She’s remarkably forgettable and I’m not sure why. It took ages before she stuck in my head as more than a vague oh-no bad feeling, and even now anything more than the broad strokes seems to slip away from me. It’s very strange.

          Suffice to say that her contribution to fandom is almost entirely just endless, tedious complaining.

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    • I liked My English Name, and I agree that Disney’s bowdlerisation of pop culture is rancid. But I don’t know why RSB styles herself “most dangerous woman in SFFH.” Has she done anything scary?

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  8. A better thread from whoever runs the Interzone account on Blue Sky:
    https://bsky.app/profile/interzone.press/post/3k5phfdcnvf2p
    ” emailed GVG on 22 Aug and asked him why *he* was publishing a story by ‘a writer whose political connections are repulsive’.

    He replied to me y’day, but didn’t answer my question and took zero responsibility. He also said, whenever a story is published, there’s a chance it will cause anger. 1/”

    “INTERZONE @interzone.press
    ·
    2d
    I followed up, later in the day (yesterday), but have not heard back.

    I think his public silence here is utterly reprehensible. And the casual manner with which in a two paragraph email he passed blame to two different women made me, makes me, very angry.

    bsky.app/profile/inte…

    2/2”

    Liked by 2 people

      • I very much admired the Andy Cox/TTA Press-era Interzone. There’s only been one issue so far under the new publisher with editor Gareth Jelley, but it was good. (For me, the standout was Kat Clay’s “The Black Box Killer.) I really hope they manage to keep it going.

        Liked by 1 person

  9. There’s a very defensive thread from Nalo Hopkinson defending Sheree Renée Thomas. I get where it is coming from but it feels ill-advised to me. In the end Thomas is the editor. It’s reasonable for people to ask what on earth is going on. It’s hard to see how anybody on the outside of all this could raise concerns without Thomas ending up a target on social media.
    “Thread, about the F&SF debacle. I don’t know how long it’ll be.

    I’ve known Sheree Renée Thomas 4 decades, as a colleague, fellow writer, as an editor. I’ve known Gordon longer.
    Aug 27, 2023 at 11:43 am
    38 reposts
    73 likes
    Nalo Hopkinson @nalohop.bsky.social
    ·
    4h
    Of the two of them, it’s Sheree who has consistently demonstrated a nuanced, compassionate, wise & outspoken grasp of the many threads of identity & access that come into play when trying to nourish a truly diverse diversity. It’s Sheree’s vision I trust, and whom I trust with my work.
    Nalo Hopkinson @nalohop.bsky.social
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    4h
    Because she has repeatedly earned that trust, not just with me, but with many writers from all kinds of backgrounds. I have learned so much from her about writing craft, about navigating racism in the U.S, about having grace & bravery under fire. So, I gotta ask…
    Nalo Hopkinson @nalohop.bsky.social
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    4h
    WHY THE FUCK Y’ALL SHOOTING?! Look at her track record. This is someone who works hard to do the right thing. And how easy did you people find it to endanger the safety of a Black woman and her family by putting in the sights of social media crazies? And without calling Gordon to task? Come on!
    Nalo Hopkinson @nalohop.bsky.social
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    4h
    @christopherrowe.bsky.social, this was not well done. Sheree deserves a frank, honest apology. @ccfinlay.bsky.social, thank you so much for taking the risk to speak out. I’m horrified to know what you went through as a former F&SF editor. You are someone else whose good deeds speak for themselves.
    Nalo Hopkinson @nalohop.bsky.social
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    4h
    TBH, like @nkjemisin.bsky.social, I was concerned for Sheree when she became F&SF’s editor. Heart in my mouth every time a new issue came out & it was excellent reading & intersectional & informed. I expected that of her, & I expected a backlash bc she’s Black, female, & visible. And now here it is.
    Nalo Hopkinson @nalohop.bsky.social
    ·
    4h
    People: what can we do to help correct this folly?

    Okay, I’m done with this thread.”
    https://bsky.app/profile/nalohop.bsky.social/post/3k5vqup5j2e25

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    • Sheree Renee Thomas does good work, she clearly had no idea who Riley was and much of the blame for the many issues at F&SF seem to lie with Gordon Van Gelder rather than with her.

      But she still is the editor and her name is still on the masthead. Also, the tweets/BlueSkies I saw about both this case and the contract issue, mentioned Van Gelder as well, only that he didn’t bother to repond, while she did.

      But I don’t think Aimee Ogden or Christopher Rowe need to apologise for pointing out problems. And Rowe pointed out the issue privately and only went public after someone else did. Ogden did too, I think.

      The main problem here is that Gordon Van Gelder is basically ignoring the whole thing and letting Sheree Renee Thomas take the fall.

      Liked by 1 person

      • I know there were more trollish people demanding that Sheree Renee Thomas should resign for even thinking about publishing Riley but after all the context etc etc etc Sheree Renee Thomas really should resign to get out of there as quickly as possible

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    • Hopkinson is first pointing out that Thomas was always in danger of backlash for being the black woman editor of a major SFF magazine, and that’s sadly true. It’s why I said in the other thread that it was good that Crowe tried to apologize and discourage attacks on Thomas because Thomas was going to be coming under a lot more vitriol for being a black woman editor in this situation than Gordon or a white man editor would be. It’s a reality — progressive white people will still be much nastier and harsher to a black woman being criticized than a white man because we’re taught always to see them as uppity if they are behaving in ways we don’t like. It’s an often unconscious dominant viewpoint that white people really don’t want to discuss that they have and that it affects their judgement, no matter how many scientific studies show that we have it.

      But Hopkinson seems to be making a second claim that she thinks some of the critics are using the incident as an excuse to get Thomas ousted because they don’t want a black woman editor for the mag rather than because they actually care about a white supremacist’s story being published. That may be true of some of the critics, but it’s a bit of an unfair characterization of BIPOC authors who are actually upset that a white supremacist’s story was getting published and in particular by a black woman editor. And it does not fit with the bulk of the critics who are concerned that the magazine’s editorial approach seems to be suddenly going backwards instead of forwards.

      People want to know how this happened. Did Thomas make a mistake because she didn’t know Riley’s background? Does she regret it and want to change it? Did Gordon make her take the story or just refused to let her cancel it, even though according to the previous editor he would often cancel accepted stories? Are they going to go ahead and publish it, as Gordon seemed to indicate, or are they not? Is Riley or friends of his making threats if they cancel the story that may be impacting their situation? Many of these questions may not be answered, but in this situation, they are going to be raised and would be raised even if Thomas was a white man. It is a breech of trust and most want to know if there’s a chance of remedying that.

      Most of the criticism isn’t going after Riley because it wasn’t Riley who made the choice. It was Thomas or Gordon or Thomas and Gordon. Thomas may not be in a position to make any sort of statement because it could get her fired. Gordon should be making more than an off-hand statement. But as previously discussed, Gordon seems to be attempting the silent strategy.

      Liked by 2 people

      • It’s the same with the bluesky thread from L.D. Lewis that Cam posted below. While I have not the slightest doubt that there are people who are using this as an excuse to attack Thomas, it isn’t the people who brought the issue to light who are the problem. here. And the assertion that the people who are publicly upset about F&SF publishing a story by Riley are somehow disrupting the delicate backstage diplomacy necessary to resolve the issue is both bizarre and not at all helpful.

        Liked by 1 person

        • Indeed – and it isn’t even like there are clear boundaries here. I can think of at least one person who is probably very happy to attack Thomas but also would have been vociferous about any magazine publishing somebody like Riley.

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  10. One thing I’ve noticed this time around, compared to the 2016 controversy over Riley, is that few people seem to be taking his side. Last time around, likely because the last phase of the whole Puppy affair was still going on, a number of established culture warriors stood with him. A case in point is this masterfully clueless post calling the National Front “a conservative political organization” and arguing that those who wanted to exclude Riley were the real fascists:

    Fascism and the HWA

    Liked by 4 people

    • To those of us in the U.K. who lived through it, the period mentioned (1973-1983) was a dark and worrying time when the NF organised violent marches and rallies, intimidated and brutalised Asian, Afro-Caribbean and Jewish communities and made significant advances in local elections. Their ideology at the time included the claims that only white folk could be citizens of the UK and that immigration was the work of a Jewish cabal to bring down ‘white’ civilisation. Anyone trying to insist that this was merely a ‘conservative political organisation’ is either ignorant or a liar.

      Liked by 2 people

  11. Has anyone sent the editor and/or GvG this link (“oh shit, this is a Nazi bar now”)?

    https://nitter.poast.org/IamRageSparkle/status/1280892535024619522 ⁺

    The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction should really have standards that are, at the very least, as high as those of a shitty crustpunk bar.

    _________________________________________________
    +: (The Nitter project gives backend access to Twitter/X tweets and threads. The above site is one of many that can be used. Nitter has started having problems because of, obviously, Twitter API and system changes. If the link above doesn’t work, and Twitter is itself not dead/down, change the site name to twitter.com)

    Liked by 2 people

    • That thread is one of the good things to come out of Twitter in the Before Times.

      I’ve seen it referenced/memed as merely “Oh, shit, this is a Nazi bar now.”

      So yeah. It needs to be sent to GVG at once and repeatedly. Anyone who’s got a link to him needs to send/tweet/whatever.

      Let’s leave poor Sheree alone, she was overruled by GVG and used as a pawn.

      (Nitter is great, and I use it for anything I’m interested in on Xitter. Mostly Jorts the Cat, because I love that furry idiot’s adventures and his solidarity with labor. And the smart, beauteous Jean.)

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  12. Continuing my collection of Blue Sky threads. Here is a relevant one from L.D.Lewis:https://bsky.app/profile/ellethevillain.bsky.social/post/3k5nju465ce2p
    “So I’m in contact with Sheree over at F&SF. We’re talking about options/optics and I really feel like I need to impress upon y’all how unhelpful this need for instant self-satisfying and public ramifications is to the ultimate resolution of issues in a way that in this case keeps a Black woman safe.
    Aug 24, 2023 at 5:16 am
    242 reposts
    592 likes
    L. D. Lewis, Sea Witch Apologist @ellethevillain.bsky.social
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    4d
    A plan was already in place to deal with the publication of the author in question, but because people need their demand for answers met Right Goddamn Now, that plan could not be enacted without delaying a Correct response to people who have already decided what the Correct action is.
    L. D. Lewis, Sea Witch Apologist @ellethevillain.bsky.social
    ·
    4d
    You now have a Black woman who has published more Black authors at a magazine in her brief tenure than the publication has in its entire 75 years of existence, whose entire career has been dedicated to the diversification of the field fending off accusations of fascism by people who know nothing.
    L. D. Lewis, Sea Witch Apologist @ellethevillain.bsky.social
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    4d
    You never see this energy for the SMOF-types keeping their bigoted friends’ stories and presences alive in hallowed halls of the industry. You don’t even see this energy for GVG who considers himself simply too busy to offer a response.
    L. D. Lewis, Sea Witch Apologist @ellethevillain.bsky.social
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    4d
    You MUST understand that putting a target on a Black woman in a leadership position in this field hits differently and meets a different level of violence. You have an obligation of care with that regard in mind, no matter what lizard-brained, social media-addled impulses insist otherwise.
    L. D. Lewis, Sea Witch Apologist @ellethevillain.bsky.social
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    4d
    Whatever happens with the resolution going forward, you will now have her targeted for “capitulating to the mob” or being viewed as some type of apologist by people who are less interested in seeing this issue through than the initial joy of joining the pile-on against her. And fuck you for that.
    L. D. Lewis, Sea Witch Apologist @ellethevillain.bsky.social
    ·
    4d
    Do you know how much space racism takes up in a Black person’s life? How we have to navigate all relationships and experiences with a personal discernment of what is and isn’t an aggression worth taxing our energy over? How many authors Black editors publish and just have to hope aren’t in the Klan?
    You can argue with your family about why there are so many fucking fascist organizations white people have founded or allowed to proliferate that it’s absurd to expect anyone to be chronically aware of them all. But now we have to know all of them too? And respond to them on your behalf?
    L. D. Lewis, Sea Witch Apologist @ellethevillain.bsky.social
    ·
    4d
    If it’s not on the page, how much due diligence is reasonable to expect for a venue receiving 2k subs/month in search of egregious sociopolitical affiliations/opinions before issuing an acceptance? And research was done. But what was found was a long history of publication. Who failed to stop that?
    L. D. Lewis, Sea Witch Apologist @ellethevillain.bsky.social
    ·
    4d
    Now me? I’d have pulled the story and been done with it. But this isn’t my magazine. What I did not do, however, is deny Sheree grace as she navigated a response to this—unsupported and on her own—that would both **keep her safe** (because that MATTERS here) and communicate effectively.
    L. D. Lewis, Sea Witch Apologist @ellethevillain.bsky.social
    ·
    4d
    Anyway, I said I wasn’t going to get into this shit but here we are. If you’re up in arms and not out in the street literally punching fascists as the lord intended, calm the fuck down because you’re less effective in your ethics than you think you are. Fin.”

    I don’t know. Seems to me having the F&SF Twitter account make a generic announcement that they had been made aware of the issue and considering what options were open to them, would not have been that difficult. It wouldn’t have stopped some of the more trollish behaviour but it would have made it easier for people to look out for Thomas’s safety, which is the main point being put forward. I agree that there is no reason Thomas should necessarily have been aware of Riley’s reputation (the HWA jury thing was a big deal but I didn’t instantly recall it). Anyway, apparently there is a plan.

    Liked by 2 people

    • I have no doubt that Sheree Renee Thomas received more vitriol than usual, because she is a black woman editing a big professional SFF magazine with a lengthy history.

      However, if there already was a plan in pace for how to deal with the issue of Riley, when the story comes out, then why didn’t Van Gelder and Thomas say so when Christopher Rowe and the person from Interzone and possibly others contacted them privately? Even something like, “Thanks for letting us know. We have a plan for how to deal with that” would have been sufficient. Christopher Rowe or Interzone clearly didn’t want to go public, until the whole thing blew up, when someone else noticed.

      Though once again, the main blame lies with Gordon Van Gelder for waiting days until publicly announcing that they were pulling the story – something they might have done right away. Even a brief public message along the lines of, “We are aware of the issue. Please bear with us, while we investigate our options” would have been sufficient.

      Liked by 2 people

      • 100%.

        “Thanks for pointing this out; we are taking this seriously and will let you know when we have an update to share” should be the default response to pretty much *any* brewing social-media storm; give yourself a bit of time to find your bearings and figure out what you actually want to say.

        Liked by 1 person

  13. I’d like to point out this post from Rowe, which is notable in being an actual communication from Van Gelder:

    > Gordon wrote me this morning and asked me to halt my “campaign.” I’ve apologized to Sheree in private (inadequately) and taken down my original posts. To Gordon, I wrote: “What you’re witnessing is an outcry. I didn’t start it. What’s continuing it is your silence and inaction.”

    So it does sound like he’s feeling the stress. I hope.

    Liked by 2 people

    • People turning on Christopher Rowe (who is good person and has plenty of unrelated crap to deal with) and to a lesser degree Aimee Ogden is just wrong.

      Rowe and Ogden only went public after trying to resolve the issue privately and getting no or no sufficient response. Rowe only weighed in after someone else raised the issue publicly, because guess what? Riley crowing over his F&SF acceptance was noticed by people who knew about his past.

      Attacking Sheree Renee Thomas is wrong, but attacking Christopher Rowe and Aimee Ogden feels like shooting the messenger. Never mind that it’s extremely unlikely either of them are running a campaign against F&SF or Thomas and Van Gelder. Rowe and Ogden have both been published in F&SF (Ogden during Thomas’ tenure – not sure about Rowe) and certainly wouldn’t want to burn bridges just to attack a magazine and its editor and publisher.

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      • Strong agree.
        Rowe may have been a bit incautious in initial phrasing, which… can be playing with fire, yes. But even noting that, it’s pretty evident he did his best to solve a delicate situation in a magazine he clearly cares for.

        (On rereading, I want to clarify that my reference “it does sound like he’s feeling the stress, I hope,” was referring to GVG as publisher and the person responsible for the magazine, not to Rowe getting pushback!)

        Liked by 2 people

  14. For what it’s worth: I’ve been a long-time fan of F&SF, and specifically as to the website, it has certainly been sliding into a state of disrepair for a long, long while. I remember the forums getting flooded with spam, and then become unreliable, then close down entirely. They stopped updating individual issues in mid 2021, and I recall asking and being told there was a technical problem — which I felt was a big shame, but the sense I got was very much that running an ongoing (if somewhat obscure) website was an arduous task they had no resources for. And certainly that they were reliant on old, old infrastructure, that were now past maintenance.

    They’ve been fairly active on social media and had a good presence there (which does make sense to me as taking priority). And seeing as F&SF doesn’t *have* an online component, I have some sympathy towards de-prioritizing the website. But oof.

    Liked by 2 people

  15. Glad to hear C.C. Finlay has been supportive. I like him because he sent some of the kindest rejection letters I’ve ever gotten, showing he actually READ and took the trouble to comment on submssions.

    Liked by 2 people

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