schism is vast and sad
I have mostly stayed quiet publicly about the latest two Internet brushfires involving queer content in fiction -- the ugliness of OSC's novella and the gays in YA = unpublishable or not. Partly this is because a lot of people have said some very smart things about these subjects. Partly because a lot of people have said some very incendiary things. I've decided to to never buy another Subterranean title, but that's my personal decision.
What has really sent me into a mire of despair is some of the ignorant, misguided comments that have been said to "broaden" gay books. It was made perfectly clear to me, yet again, that there is a vast schism between people who identify as spec fic fans/readers who enjoy a bit of queer content in their fiction and readers who identify as queer and occasionally read spec fic. I cannot be the only one who sees this chasm.
How many writers bridge it? I once believed I did, but it's plainly clear I do not. Once Chip did but his past great works are not as mentioned as they once were and his recent gay books are fairly mainstream. Richard Bowes? I don't believe he was mentioned. And I don't think he wants to be known as a gay writer.
There is no ocean that connexts the camps. You cannot be a small fish that swims back and forth. There is real reluctance on both sides to read the fiction of the other. When I attend S&S I have to speak an entire different language. Same at Readercon.
This saddens me. It means that I can never be the writer I wanted to be. Because I would have to choose sides. No, that's not right. For the most part, the spec fic camp doesn't want to read the sort of fiction I produce. Or really publish. Diana Comet won a Lambda. But was it reviewed in PW? Or Locus? The Strange Horizons review was incomprehensive. Very telling.
Groups like the Outer Alliance or Gaylaxians are so one-sided to the spec-fic camp that I find myself not wanting to become involved. And the gay lit camp treats spec fic as the weird child.
I can only look down into the abyss in the schism and worry.
What has really sent me into a mire of despair is some of the ignorant, misguided comments that have been said to "broaden" gay books. It was made perfectly clear to me, yet again, that there is a vast schism between people who identify as spec fic fans/readers who enjoy a bit of queer content in their fiction and readers who identify as queer and occasionally read spec fic. I cannot be the only one who sees this chasm.
How many writers bridge it? I once believed I did, but it's plainly clear I do not. Once Chip did but his past great works are not as mentioned as they once were and his recent gay books are fairly mainstream. Richard Bowes? I don't believe he was mentioned. And I don't think he wants to be known as a gay writer.
There is no ocean that connexts the camps. You cannot be a small fish that swims back and forth. There is real reluctance on both sides to read the fiction of the other. When I attend S&S I have to speak an entire different language. Same at Readercon.
This saddens me. It means that I can never be the writer I wanted to be. Because I would have to choose sides. No, that's not right. For the most part, the spec fic camp doesn't want to read the sort of fiction I produce. Or really publish. Diana Comet won a Lambda. But was it reviewed in PW? Or Locus? The Strange Horizons review was incomprehensive. Very telling.
Groups like the Outer Alliance or Gaylaxians are so one-sided to the spec-fic camp that I find myself not wanting to become involved. And the gay lit camp treats spec fic as the weird child.
I can only look down into the abyss in the schism and worry.