Wicked Pretty Update

[cleolinda]

Quick recap: Jessica Verday dropped out of the "Melissa Marr-ish" Wicked Pretty Things YA anthology after being asked to change a "G-rated" male/male romance to male/female. The editor, Trisha Telep, made a bizarrely cheerful non-apology; Running Press claimed to both support LGBTQ writing and stand behind the editor 100%. Out of thirteen stories

Comments

[ceilidh_ann]

The plot thickens and I think it's only going to continue tomorrow.

I think the right path is to definitely hold Telep responsible for her actions, which completely bypassed actually consulting the publishers on the situation. Why do that? It doesn't make a whole lot of sense. The publishers are being rather coy over it all which is to be expected, but it wouldn't make sense on a business level to keep Telep employed on some level of the public and writer's community want nothing to do with her.

[cleolinda]

I feel like there's something else going on here that hasn't quite come to light yet. It's just really telling to me, though, that Telep assumed so blithely that a gay relationship/romance wasn't "light" enough content for the anthology, but the F word was totes okay. Like, three G-rated kisses (as Jessica termed them) were "dirtier" or more explicit than horror and cursing, to the point where she didn't even think to check, because it was such an obvious conclusion. Those are the views the writers are dealing with here, is what I'm saying.

[shadowmaat]

Maybe if they were kissing each other's naughty bits...

Wouldn't exactly be G-rated, though. ;)

[ceilidh_ann]

Yep, that made my blood boil. I'm still baffled at the 'alternative sexualities' thing as well. She never would have asked an author to change a character's ethnicity because her anthologies were light on 'alternative race.' It's not an 'old fashioned' idea of romance; it's a close minded one. She clearly didn't realise how seriously the YA community takes these issues but I think she does now. Still waiting on a real apology that doesn't talk about gay Scottish wrestling (still rolling my eyes at that one too.)

I wonder if stuff like this happens regularly, not just in YA but literature in general. I guess it's something not a lot of editors and publishers would want to blab about but I don't think this is an isolated incident. That's depressing.

[bubosquared]

Like, three G-rated kisses (as Jessica termed them) were "dirtier" or more explicit than horror and cursing, to the point where she didn't even think to check, because it was such an obvious conclusion.

I think it's worth noting that this was the prevailing attitude in slash fandom when I got into it, and that was back in the late '90s. Hell, it's an attitude that's still around even among people who wriote primarily m/m stuff, although over the last ten years I've personally seen less and less of it -- but then, the fandoms I'm in and the people I hang with skew young and queer.

It's not that surprising to me to see it coming from someone who's a generation older than I am, is what I'm saying. :/

Not, mind you, that this exonerates her. For one thing, if she works in the YA genre, she really should know better than to think that's still the prevailing attitude among YA writers, let alone readers, and for another, like you've mentioned, her "apology" and subsequent reactions ... Yeah, no.

[windtear]

You're right when you say it doesn't make sense that she'd make that decision on her own. I think that she didn't, and Telep DID have publisher backing on her choices (because, sad but true, gay romance is a niche market and therefore does not sell as much) until the market went up in flames about it and they backtracked, leaving Telep exposed out in the open on her own. But then, I am a cynical bitch, and when it comes to companies I assume that they don't have a social conscience unless it leads to profit until and unless they prove otherwise.