virtuallyleslie

[virtuallyleslie]

Genre Grapevine for September/October 2024

[virtuallyleslie]

On the Neil Gaiman of it all

More women have come forward to accuse Gaiman of sexual assault and abuse. BTW that's an archive link, not one to the original. I'll explain why in a bit.

First, I wasn't surprised when the first accusations came out because I've been aware that Neil has been involving himself in extracurricular activities for many years. In certain SFF literary circles it's not even an "open secret", it's just open.

I had not heard anything around issues of consent. Given what I've heard and what #MeToo has reminded us again and again about (mainly) men and power, I can't bring myself to be shocked even though it wasn't something I suspected.

Even if the two women who first came forward did consent as Neil claims, he's still not off the hook. Both of those relationships were highly inappropriate on multiple levels and he, as the person with more power, more privilege, and more years, should never have initiated or engaged in them. Period.

Second, I'm even less surprised that more women have come forward. I expect we're gonna see a tsunami of them before this is all over. As I said, I've heard things going back decades, and I am not even an insider. I just know a lot of people and many of the people I know also know him.

(side note: several people I know and love dearly are dear friends of his and I'm not implying they gossip or anything like that. I feel bad for many of them right now. I feel worse for the women he preyed on.)

I am saying all this because I know that fandom and the SFF community has already been deluged with discourse about all this and some die hard Gaiman lovers are going to continue pushing back against the accusations very hard. Folks who refuse to believe probably can't be persuaded. Don't let their inability to deal with the cognitive dissonance between Neil the Great Writer and Neil the Guy Who Abuses Vulnerable People make you question your own moral compass.

If you see people disparaging the women or their supporters, call them out. If you see harassment, shame the harasser. Report, block, do what you have to do. Make sure people know you support vulnerable people who were taken advantage of, even if the person who did it is your fave.

Again, the bottom line is that no matter if consent was given or not, no matter if coercion was explicit or implied, Neil Gaiman should not have been doing what he was doing.

Lastly, I want to acknowledge that the source of reporting on this, Tortoise, IS problematic. The lead reporter, Rachel Johnson, is Boris Johnson's sister. Yes, former UK Prime Minister Boris. Tory party guy Boris. I don't know much about Rachel, though I've seen multiple people label her as a TERF.

I also know the Tories have, of late, been Doing Too Much re: going after prominent celebrities who support things they hate, such as trans rights, LGBTQIA+ rights, multiculturalism, etc. It wouldn't surprise me to know that the stories from the initial two women didn't just happen to fall into Rachel's lap. I wouldn't be shocked to find that this is tied up in the same bullshit as them harassing David Tennant, et al. And yet.

Calling David a pedo for supporting trans kids is them lying and slandering. Revealing what Neil Gaiman actually, factually did is not. The two incidents are not the same.

However, the fruit from the poisoned tree (or whatever the phrase is) of it all does bother me. A lot. Because it's not fair to the women coming forward for their testimony to be tainted by Tory political bullshit.

For now, I'm going to minimize my sharing from that source and try to point at posts where people have summarized what's in the podcasts and articles or only link to archive versions so I don't give them more traffic. I also hope that journalists other than Rachel Johnson look into this, or even that the women themselves find a way to get their stories out there and let us know directly what support they need or what action they want people to take.

There's a framework for this. People who were groomed and abused by author Warren Ellis created a website to document their accusations, provide receipts, and lay out what they wanted from Ellis, what they wanted the comic and literary community to do about Ellis and others like him, and how to support victims.

[virtuallyleslie]

Happy happy, joy joy dance!

To Shape a Dragon’s Breath has been nominated for the 2024 Andre Norton Nebula Award for Middle Grade and Young Adult Fiction!

[virtuallyleslie]

Here is a brief summary of what is happening in Wikipedia right now:

In the last few years (3-4 years) the WikiProject Indigenous peoples of North America, which was originally created to improve the quality and coverage of native issues and native articles on wikipedia, has been hijacked by a small number of users with an extremist agenda. They have been working diligently over the last few years to change the definition of both what it means to be an Indigenous American and even what it means to be state and federally recognized.

The four or five key players (Mainly Editor Yuchitown, Bohemian Baltimore, ARoseWolf, (now retired editor CorbieVreccan, Netherzone and Oncamera) who are part of the “Native American Articles Improvement Project” started implementing these changes slowly, but they started pursuing their goals aggressively after November 2023, when state-recognized tribes retained their voting rights in NCAI. Essentially, after the movement to delegitimize state-recognized tribes failed officially, the key players doubled down on altering and controlling the flow of information about Native Americans through Wikipedia.

The talk page of Lily Gladstone’s article has a relevant discussion here. Initially, the leaders of the WikiProject removed any reference to her being a “Native American Actress” and instead had her as “Self-identifying as Blackfoot” and “Self-identifying as Nez Perce” because her blood quantum was too low to be enrolled in either tribe.

You can see some of the discussion here:

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Lily_Gladstone

Eventually they relented and changed her category to being “Of Nez Perce Descent” but you can see in the discussion that they are referring to an article that these editors (Yuchitown, Bohemian Baltimore, and CorbieVreccan) themselves appeared to have mostly written and revised:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_American_identity_in_the_United_States

This statement is very much at odds with even the government’s description, as seen below;

The DOJ Office of Tribal Justice Office on their webpage “Frequently Asked Questions About Native American”, question “Who is an American Indian or Alaskan Native” states:

“As a general principle, an Indian is a person who is of some degree Indian blood and is recognized as an Indian by a Tribe and/or the United States. No single federal or tribal criterion establishes a person's identity as an Indian. Government agencies use differing criteria to determine eligibility for programs and services. Tribes also have varying eligibility criteria for membership.”

In addition, “List” pages have been created on Wikipedia for federally and state recognized tribes. The Wikipedia “List” page for state-recognized tribes is inaccurate in its interpretation of state recognition and not supported by expert reliable sources--(1) Cohen’s Handbook of Federal Indian Law 2012 edition, (2) NCSL.org current stand on state recognition (not the archived list from 2017 which NCSL no longer supports), (3) Koenig & Stein’s paper “Federalism and the State Recognition of Native American Tribes: a survey of state-recognized tribes and state recognition processes across the United States” (both 2008 & updated 2013 in book “ Recognition, sovereignty struggles, and indigenous rights in the United States: A sourcebook”)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State-recognized_tribes_in_the_United_States

State-recognized tribes who have received recognition through less formal but acceptable means have been moved from the Wikipedia list page on state-recognized tribes to the Wikipedia list page of unrecognized or self-identifying organizations.

The Wiki page "List of organizations that self-identify as Native American tribes", in particular, is being used to purposely defame legitimate Native American individuals who are members of the tribes/Native communities that are on this list. 

By the parameters set up on Wikipedia, only the colonizer’s governments can acknowledge who is Native American through either federal recognition or state recognition. If an individual is not a member of a federally or state-recognized tribe, then it is determined that they cannot be Native American and are, instead, considered “self-identifying” or only “a descendant of ...” (example Lily Gladstone). As a result, Native individuals are currently being tagged as “self-identifying” and their names are put on “list” pages that strongly imply they are “pretend” Indians.

These editors have indicated that they would like “self-identification” to be the default setting for any people who they deem do not fit within the parameters that they themselves created within Wikipedia.

Moreof, these editors are admin and senior editors within the Wikiproject Indigenous Peoples of North America, and are being called in specifically to weigh on Native Identity, and any project involving any Indigenous Group.

Any attempt to correct misinformation, add information, or change any of these articles is often met with being blocked, reported for various offenses, or reported for having a Conflict of Interest, whether or not that is actually applicable. They have use this strategically in many different pages for many different individuals and groups within the scope of their Wikiprojects.

While changing things in Wikipedia does not change the truth, it is a way to control how most people take in information, and thus they hope to manipulate the narrative to better suit their goals.

This is quick and messy but:

Here is a link to the google document with the other state recognized tribes (Including yours) that were edited by these editors. This is an incomplete list so far that only goes back to September 2023 but I am going to add to it. If you can add to your own part of this list, and send your complaints and information to the arbitrator committee (the email is below) with the involved editors, this will help our case.

The  more tribes who complain, and the more Wikipedia editors complain, the better our case will be. 

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1YNDEjLTrrZ_mMIRCVxtvt69FwCYpJWKs71lBhWa5a9M/edit?usp=sharing

The place to make complaints on Wikipedia is oversight-en-wpwikipedia.org , and

arbcom-enwikimedia.org . It is most helpful to have an editing account on Wikipedia, because Yuchitown and the others will try to defend themselves using Wikipedia methodology and make anyone who confronts them look like the aggressor (see the other tribes who tried to fight back on Wikipedia I found).

The more people and tribes make complaints the more likely it is that this will work and we can rid ourselves of these monsters.

Some of the tribes I have spoken to are taking legal action against these editors. Any groups affected by their policies should also reach out to the news to make knowledge of this more widespread.

Thank you

- quoted with permission from an email sent by an associate of my tribe. Message me for their email address if you'd like to reach out to them.

[virtuallyleslie]

Congratulations Moniquill Blackgoose!

TO SHAPE A DRAGON'S BREATH is on the official reading list for Best First Novel with the Locus Awards

The Locus Awards are reader awards! You decide the winners!

Just go through the poll: https://poll.voting.locusmag.com

[virtuallyleslie]

Kisses for the grumpy boy!!

(and artistic license for the dragons)

Please read To Shape A Dragon's Breath by Moniquill Blackgoose i need a fandom to go insane with while i wait for the next one <3

[virtuallyleslie]

I'm thrilled to announce that I'll be working with three wonderful authors just signed with Prentis Literary!

Ashley Laino, with a magical and adventurous middle-grade

Tina Tenhehco, with a cyberpunk YA retelling of Hansel & Gretel

Charleigh Frederick, with a fun, bouncy anti-hero YA

Watch for news of where these talented authors books end up!

[virtuallyleslie]

Lovely

[virtuallyleslie]

I love this so much!

I need them to grow old together and be happy and in love forever thanks

Everyone go read To Shape A Dragon's Breath by Moniquill Blackgoose, thanks

(Kasaqua is probs asleep at their feet)

[virtuallyleslie]

I'm looking for writers who would like to do readings at an event space in Seattle. My goal is to have a few nights of these events, 2-3 authors, space to sell books and interact, full bar. Get in touch if this is something for you!

[virtuallyleslie]

I have seen a lot of comparisons between To Shape A Dragon's Breath and Fourth Wing, and while I enjoyed Fourth Wing it cannot be denied that it was a silly romance with some Fantasy Flavor. Something munchy you grab from a gas station on a car trip. A snack.

To Shape a Dragon's Breath is a five course michelin star MEAL

More thoughts to follow later probably

(Like I understand the two dragon school books published around the same time are going to be compared but this is apples and candy corn, people)

[virtuallyleslie]

anyone who is a fan of The Name of the Wind should read To Shape a Dragon's Breath by Moniquill Blackgoose. I started it yesterday afternoon and am already 200+ pages in. It's fantastic.

[virtuallyleslie]

The Short Story Reader #124 - Morag's Boy by Fiona Moore

Previous | Next Once upon a time, some four months ago, I reviewed a little story by Fiona Moore called “The Spoil Heap“. Imagine my shock when the very first story in Clarkesworld #207 is a standalone sequel, once more featuring my favourite postapocalyptic techie Morag! Now older, Morag is asked by her family to take care of a young boy, Cliff, who struggles with finding a place in his…

[virtuallyleslie]

High praise indeed!

[virtuallyleslie]

Both this and an indigenous cover artist were central asks in the contract, per Moniquill's direction. Del Rey remains the most fantastic partner for their attention and dedication to finding some of the best indigenous artists of a talented pool! Thanks to everyone who helped build this book!

Borrowed the To Shape a Dragon's Breath audiobook from my library. Realized it's read by an indigenous audiobook narrator. Got really excited because I knew that was gonna make the narration so much better and it made the narration much more authentic.

I don't even do audiobooks. I'm an hour in and it's freaking amazing. I could listen to this forever. I might.