A response from EPIC

[erastes]

EPIC haven't responded to my concerns, no surprise there, but they did reply to a fellow m/m writer Pat Brown. She graciously gave me permission to publish their answer on this blog, so here goes.  If you have high blood pressure you might want to take a pill now. The whole letter seems to me to be a metaphor for a woman with a shovel digging a deeper and deeper hole. Aside from one removed section, email is reproduced as is, typos and all.


"We fully embrace the difference in romantic liaisons. We have a category, GLBT, for same sex romance and other books within those genres. We are looking into adding a GLBT Romance category next year because we realize that we need a split between general GLBT books and their romantic counterparts.

"We have a large membership that DOES write exclusively in the GBLT category. They have not complained about the definition because they know we don't exclude them at all. It wasn't until after the contest started that we all realized we could have included a GLBT category which encompassed romance.

"Every contest has rules. Not everyone will agree with those rules. HOWEVER, we do our very best to include everyone. Not everyone is so open minded in regards to same sex romance. Every category MUST have a definition that defines that category. Contemporary Romance IS a category of heterosexual couples where as Contemporary GBLT Romance would not be. We don't have those new categories yet and we are not adverse to adding them should it be necessary.

"The GLBT category is judged only by people who LOVE the genre. Isn't that the way it should be?

"On a personal note, some of my best author friends are gay. Some of my female author friends write gay books. I personally have embraced that people are different all my life no matter what their sexual orientation might be. [section removed as it refers directly to personal feelings and politics]

"On a professional level, EPIC tries to be extremely fair to ALL it's members. We have gone from a contest with no GBLT category to one who
embraces the genre with open arms. We started with approximately 20 categories to a contest with 30 categories. We change as the market
changes and we try to say on top of the market.

"We take every complaint seriously and yours will be filed away to be looked at next year when we are once again doing the category definitions for the EPPIEs.

"I am hoping that this will put to rest your fears regarding this subject.

"Thank you.

"Carol MacLeod
"EPIC President"

ETA: My two cents:

1. We fully embrace the difference in romantic liaisons 

What differences?  Why is gay love different from heterosexual love.

2.We have a category, GLBT, for same sex romance and other books within those genres.  

How kind at least there's somewhere for those "other books" to go other than in the normal categories. It also means that Age of Sail, Vikings, Thrillers, Detective, Scifi, Fantasy, contemp romance all have to compete against each other.

3. We are looking into adding a GLBT Romance category next year because we realize that we need a split between general GLBT books and their romantic counterparts.

Again. WHY do you need a split between gay books and their "romantic counterparts"?

4. They have not complained

Because as far as I can tell, most of them hadn't seen the category definitions before they entered?  Also people don't like to complain. And they have complained. I've complained. Pat Brown has complained and Lee Rowan has complained.

5. Contemporary Romance IS a category of heterosexual couples

WHY?  Could you explain to me why contemporary=heterosexual?

6. On a personal note, some of my best author friends are gay.

Oh Dear. Foot - meet bullets.

7. I personally have embraced that people are different all my life no matter what their sexual orientation might be

I think that's the crux of the matter, madam Chairperson. - you consider gay people to be DIFFERENT and while you think you are being accepting, for forgiving them for being different, you are actually being - perhaps unintentionally - homophobic.

8. We change as the market changes and we try to say on top of the market.

As ebooks sprung mainly from the GLBT and erotic end of the market, I challenge that assertion.

Comments

[b-sheridan.livejournal.com]

Um...yeah.

[rwday.livejournal.com]

On a personal note, some of my best author friends are gay

FAIL.

[lamardeuse.livejournal.com]

OMG SHE ACTUALLY USED THE "SOME OF MY BEST FRIENDS ARE..." LINE.

*headdesks*

[auburnimp.livejournal.com]

Oh perlease!

[rikibeth.livejournal.com]

OH NO SHE DI'INT1

Except, of course, that she did.

[joyful-molly.livejournal.com]

Not everyone is so open minded in regards to same sex romance.

We shall throw our unworthy selves into the dust now, eating crow and ask for her forgiveness, for we did not appreciate her extreme generosity and open-mindedness and embracing attitude as we should have.

[valarltd.livejournal.com]

It's one of those "Change is happening, but slowly" things.
The letters this year (and next and next) will be the force that causes the change

Let me be frank: GLBT work does NOT perform as well in open categories. Preference will always be given to the heterosexual stories (or in the case of one award I always end up nominated and finalist in, but never win, stories with no sex at all).

It sounds like they are amenable to adding more categories as time progresses, but unwilling to lump everything into "Romance."

My best friends....No. FAIL. You go straight to the nearest community center and get your butt educated. (I'm queer and I can't even say that)

[erastes.livejournal.com]

You win the prize button for giving me the belly laugh of the day with the "get your butt educated" line.

I need to Icon that. Now.

[erastes.livejournal.com]

I had a shovel all handy, and yanno? She didn't need it - she had her own!

I also loved the "the difference in romantic liaisons" part.

Yes because gay love is DIFFERENT to NORMAL love.

[erastes.livejournal.com]

Damn us! Damn us for being so liberal! It's all OUR FAULT!

[melspenser.livejournal.com]

I find it interesting that "no one else has complained." There's an open note from Lee Rowan out there right now. Plus, a lot of people don't complain because they don't want to commit professional suicide in an open forum: i.e., not going along with the clique is not usually a healthy thing to do.

"Some of my best friends are gay..." What a lame response.

Ironically, she seems to be patting herself on the back for her progressive thinking.

I'm going to take a couple of Tylenol now.

[erastes.livejournal.com]

It's hard to complain sometimes, as you say - but necessary me thinks. Another part of the letter that got me was the fact that they only realised AFTER the contest started that they should have GLBT romance categories.

Last year they overlooked the infamous plagiarised book "after the contest started" too

[adriannebrennan.livejournal.com]

Word.

I can't get why ebooks are supposed to be so cutting edge and yet print books are ahead of them in regards to getting m/m and f/f--and ESPECIALLY f/f--out into the markets.

Loved the "some of my friends are" line. The classic cop-out. *sighs*

[gehayi.livejournal.com]

I'm never going to forget that. I mean, they didn't just miss that a book had been plagiarized. A Hidden Passion became a finalist!

If they're going to separate gay from het, the contest should at least have categories identical to the het ones. And the judges should call the categories what they are. Not Contemporary Romance--which, given the definition, implies that ONLY straight people participate in contemporary romance--but Contemporary Straight Romance and Contemporary GBLT Romance. Straight Thrillers and GBLT Thrillers. Straight Science Fiction and GBLT Science Fiction. Straight Historicals and GBLT Historicals. None of this "gay stuff only fits in the gay and the porn categories" bit.

Oh, and there would have to be a third category for books where there were two or more main pairings and one was straight and the other was not.

[jessewave.livejournal.com]

Who are these people that head up organizations like EPIC, RWA etc? Are there nominations and voting for candidates of your choice to sit on the board and be president? Can the current board be ousted if they don't act in the best interests of ALL the members? I realize that there are a lot of the "old guard" still around in these organizations, but the only way to achieve real change is to do it from inside as one very knowledgeable person in the industry pointed out to me a few weeks ago when I was railing against the lack of progress in this field. So maybe that's where you start. I don't think much will change without a wholesale change in attitude as evidenced by the comments from the President of EPIC. Her comment that some of her best author friends are gay is like saying "some of my best friends are black".

[erastes.livejournal.com]

And then you'll have to have a fourth set of categories where the emphasis was romance but the relationship was threeway or more.

[erastes.livejournal.com]

I don't know what their voting criteria is, to be honest. Perhaps it's members who vote?

And yes, a change in attitude is very clearly called for when the Chairperson of EPIC considers her gay friends to be nice but different.

[lee-rowan.livejournal.com]

4. They have not complained

Because as far as I can tell, most of them hadn't seen the category definitions before they entered? Also people don't like to complain.

* * *

Because most of the m/m writers in EPIC are following the "Keep quiet, be polite, be grateful for any acknowledgment that we exist."

And -- sorry? If there's been no complaining, I have to wonder what the hell they think my post was - because my LJ entry was what I sent on the open Epic business Yahoo group. And I can't believe I'm the only person who said anything, though I might be teh only rude bitch who's said anything in public.

[lee-rowan.livejournal.com]

Epic's a members-only, all-volunteer organization, and officers are elected, so to a great extent it reflects the membership--that is, it reflects the membership self-selected for people who have an interest in running for office in the organization. The truth is, it's a small organization and in the grand scheme of publishing, not a mover or shaker, and I know more people who have said 'screw it' and just left than people who are active in the group's politics. Small-group politics is a pain in the rear, and avoiding it makes sense from a writer's perspective. Most of us are trying to find time to write and do all the promotional fandancing. Small-group politicking is not on my list of top 10 useful things to do... so yes, actually, to some degree it is our own 'fault'--not for being liberal, but for not wanting to take over the group and change the rules.

I have to say this, too - most people who say 'some of my best friends are X' DO NOT REALIZE that the phrase was originally, "some of my best friends are black (or was it Jewish?) but I wouldn't want my sister to marry one." They really don't. They do not understand why having a nice little table in the corner by the kitchen door, where our presence won't upset the rest of the patrons, isn't really treating us fairly (whatever minority 'us' may be.)

And it truly is difficult to be fair to all parties, until those parties make their presence known. When someone says, "Why aren't there more bisexual/minority/f-f/poly stories--what can you say but "I don't know, have you written any?"

This isn't a problem that's going to be solved anytime soon, and it is incremental. I think it would make more sense just to leave out the restrictive wording and if glbt books fail in the larger categories, so be it. It may be a handicap in terms of general popularity, but if an athlete with a prosthetic leg wants to enter the Boston Marathon, knowing there's little chance of a win, is it fair to say "two whole legs only?"

[sithdreams.livejournal.com]

Dear god, did she actually bust out the "some of my best friends are gay" comment? Dear god...

Having had personal difficulties with the ridiculous EPPIE (or Schmeppies, as I call them) categories, I won't sub any of my GLBT work anymore.

*slinks back away*

[lee-rowan.livejournal.com]

The multiplication of categories is the problem--there have to be a certain (unnamed) number of entries for the category to be self-supporting. I don't know what the trophies cost, but .. again, it comes down to volunteers. If they had 20 people sign on and volunteer to coordinate the glbt section, that might make it more possible. OTOH,they already have people who think there are too many categories.

Personally, I think it has to be pretty crowded for there to be too many, but I haven't got a hell of a lot of competitive spirit--I'd rather be one-third of a 3-way tie for first place than be the Supreme Hoo-Ha of Whatever. There are over 6 billion people on the planet, for pity's sake -- another handful of awards isn't going to upset some grand scheme of competition. "There Can Be Only One" is BS.

[lee-rowan.livejournal.com]

IMO, they do not need to split GLBT Romance off from other GLBT. Worst possible way to do it. Most of the m/m stories are romance, of one sort or another, so creating a GLBT Romance and GLBT Other is not going to fix anything. They need to make mirror romance categories: Historical, Sci-Fi, Contemp, Paranormal, whatever.

The problem with this process, as I see it, is that they elect officials and ask for award committee volunteers - but then there is no input until after the categories are finalized for the year. The time to ask for input is when the categories are being defined.

[angelabenedetti.livejournal.com]

On number three, my interpretation is that they've recognized the need to separate general GBLT books from romantic GBLT books. It could be better worded, but that's what it looks like to me. And so far as that goes, I agree. If it's silly to have pirate romances competing with lawyer romaces competing with SF romances, then it's even sillier to have a gay historical romance competing with a non-fiction gay lifestyle or history-of-the-gay-community book. Having a General GBLT category separate from a GBLT Romance category would be a step in the right direction IMO.

That said, yeah, the rest of it is full of fail, and I agree that she's probably not even aware of most of the slurs or points of offensiveness. :/

I have to agree with Lee, though, that the best way to get them to change would probably be from within. I haven't written to complain because I'm not an EPIC member, and it would seem a bit entitled for me as an outsider to be demanding that a group I'm not a member of change to please me.

And if that's not an option, then what is? Is there any other kinda-sorta-major award for e-books? Heck, is there any other industry organization for e-book writers? Or for GBLT writers? I haven't noticed that EPIC gives all that much in return for its membership dues anyway -- one of the reasons I've been slow to join -- so are there any viable alternatives? RWA would technically be a fit for those of us who write romances, but they're not exactly known for being gay-friendly either. [cough] So what's out there for us? Anything? :/

Angie

[angelabenedetti.livejournal.com]

How small a group are we talking about? That is, about how many GBLT writers would have to join and become active -- at least active enough to participate in discussions and support one or two of their own for elected offices, and to volunteer for things like organizing the Eppies -- to make a significant difference? Ten? Twenty? Two hundred?

On just throwing open all the categories without addressing the bias, I'd find it horribly frustrating to enter the "proper" categories year after year and know that I was always going to lose to a het-oriented book, no matter what. I don't think the Boston Marathon is a valid comparison; at least with a footrace, winning or losing is dependent solely on the ability of the competitor, and they don't have to worry about getting half their points deducted by the Russian judge, or a panel composed of 80% Russian judges.

If my stories lost to awesomely written books which just happened to be het romances, then fine. But if it became clear that the judging was biased against GBLT work from the start, then that's a whole 'nother kettle of weasels and yeah, it's a problem. :/

Angie

[lee-rowan.livejournal.com]

Which is why I think separate categories would be the best solution--where the author chooses which competition to enter. If someone chose to put a het romance in the glbt category because, say, the heroine had a brother dying of AIDS and she was trying to get a marriage bill passed while he was still alive so he could marry his partner - and the hero had some kind of political influence but had to defy political....hmm. there's a plot here, I think.

But it should be the writer's decision.

I don't know how many active voices would be necessary, because it's not just m/m writers who are striving for fairness. But the strategy so far has mostly been just to enter as many glbt books as possible to prove that the numbers are there to justify separate categories. It's clear from the number of entries that the "Inspirational" category exists mainly for the relatively few people entering books in that category.