Update on the Ottinger discussion
For anyone who missed it -- after my previous post, John Ottinger III apologized, both on his blog and in comments here.
Where I stand now: I am impressed with the sincerity of his reply, and with the fact that he's not making excuses, and I hope he'll continue to follow these conversations and (hopefully) find new and interesting authors to review. I do find it regrettable that he chose to delete his original post, and I don't agree with that decision, but I'm for what makes people comfortable in their own space so long as it's not hurting others, and I don't count this inconvenience as hurt.
The disagreement also inspired a great essay from Lavie Tidhar. It links back to a number of others, so I'm being lazy and only linking to it.
I do want to quote this bit (actually I want to put it on billboards! in NEON!):
Background, culture, identity: they are not incidental to a story, they are the heart of it.
Now, there's a sentence I wish I'd written.
Where I stand now: I am impressed with the sincerity of his reply, and with the fact that he's not making excuses, and I hope he'll continue to follow these conversations and (hopefully) find new and interesting authors to review. I do find it regrettable that he chose to delete his original post, and I don't agree with that decision, but I'm for what makes people comfortable in their own space so long as it's not hurting others, and I don't count this inconvenience as hurt.
The disagreement also inspired a great essay from Lavie Tidhar. It links back to a number of others, so I'm being lazy and only linking to it.
I do want to quote this bit (actually I want to put it on billboards! in NEON!):
Background, culture, identity: they are not incidental to a story, they are the heart of it.
Now, there's a sentence I wish I'd written.