Last round of SFWA commentary–this time

[annathepiper]

Stick a fork in it, looks like this one’s pretty much done.

Following the SFWA presidential bulletin that the petition that caused a tempest in the SFnal teapot was over a thing that isn’t even going to actually happen, I saw three links of interest on the matter that basically appear to be wrapping it up.

Jim Hines has a nice thoughtful post up trying to understand what motivated a lot of people to sign the thing in the first place. It’s worth looking at, just on that basis alone.

John Scalzi has cogent commentary on things to keep in mind regarding petitions and free speech. He also points out that he personally knows a LOT of the signers on the petition and wasn’t going to cotton to picking on them. Fair enough.

And Victoria Strauss points out that SFWA is a force for good in a lot of ways–pointing out quite correctly that Writer Beware itself is a critical resource for all writers, not just the ones writing SF/F. She’s optimistic that these upheavals the organization is going through are a sign of it improving.

I’d like to hope she’s right, if nothing else because it just saddens me to think of an organization dedicated to the betterment of the careers of writers of SF/F–the genre that should be looking forward, not back–can get embroiled in crap like this over and over. I mean, I still don’t qualify to join so it’s not like I have any real horse in this race, but still. I’d like to see them move on from this to the betterment of everyone in the organization, and everyone who might like to join it in the future.

We’ll see what happens next and how the rest of the year proceeds for all involved.

ETA: Dara’s wrap-up post on the matter is over here.

Mirrored from angelahighland.com.

Comments

Well...

[ysabetwordsmith]

I gave up checking whether I qualified back in the mid-90's when I realized that I was writing in a branch of the field they just didn't give a fuck about supporting, didn't care about people who made significant income via unapproved markets or content or whatever. Professionalism isn't about being in a magic club. It's about doing a good job and making enough money to affect the family budget in a positive way. What they SFWA is into and what I'm into just don't seem to overlap much, despite the genre similarity. *shrug*

Re: Well...

[annathepiper]

Professionalism isn't about being in a magic club

Of course it's not, and I never said it was. However, there are two general reasons I continue to give half a damn about this, enough to devote post space to it.

One, SFWA is the core group of working authors in the genre in which I write. Which at least in theory makes these people my peers, so it behooves me to keep an eye on what issues are circulating through the genre and how it functions within the broader picture of the publishing industry.

And two, there are people in SFWA who not only aren't assholes, they are people whose work and public presences I respect, and they care about what's going on in the organization and are trying to make it better. So I'm keeping an eye on it to see if they succeed.

At the end of the day, it doesn't cause me much grief that I'm not in SFWA--but I do recognize the simple fact that in a lot of the genre circles, you still don't get taken seriously if you haven't published in a market that can qualify you for SFWA. In a lot of ways this still means "you have to get published in print". The genre still doesn't give much of a shit about digital-first publishing, never mind self-pub.

But they do do good things, e.g., Writer Beware and the various other things that Victoria Strauss called out in the post I linked to. So I recognize that when it runs right, a writers' organization can be a force for good.

This is part of why I went and joined NIWA. SFWA is not currently answering the needs of self-pubbed writers and digitally pubbed writers to have somebody looking out for their interests, and while NIWA's not even remotely on the same scale for industry-wide clout, it seems like they're starting down a good path.