Response from EPIC (to me)
Sep. 17th, 2008 05:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
erastesI've had a response from EPIC - not in response to my two emails to the Chairperson, but from a former President, Brenna Lyons who seems to have been told of my dissent, rather than having read my emails or seen my posts. I'll post both her letter and my response to it.
Erastes,
You know me from ERWA, I'm sure. I don't know what was said on what list. All I know is that you somehow got the mistaken idea that EPIC is bigoted against GLBT romance. If you'd give me a moment and some patience, I'd like to explain what we're dealing with here.
First of all, we have a separate GLBT category, as many contests do, BECAUSE the GLBT writing community asked us for one. For two years in a row, authors of M/M and F/F romance asked us to make a separate GLBT category, because none of us (myself included, as I was fielding complaints from judges and from author entrants both) felt the books were getting a fair judging in the romance categories. Now, before you blame EPIC for that, we were doing everything we could to ensure they would get a fair judging (asking for content information from authors and content nits from judges and so forth then avoiding giving GLBT to judges who expressed concern about it), but there is only so much we can do, and the current pool of judges weren't helping us mainstream them. The REQUEST to create a GLBT category seemed like a good one to grant. At the time we created the category, the authors who'd asked for it were happy with that, and I've only seen two complaints about it since then (averaging one complaint a year...not too bad, considering our track record).
Do I believe GLBT romance is romance? You know I do. I've even written in the subgenre. Can I get enough judges to accept it to ENSURE a fair judging to those who enter it in non-erotic romance categories? Maybe not at this time, and my first concern is a fair judging for all books entered. I CAN get enough judges to accept GBLT content, all the way around, to compete all GLBT non-erotic together and GLBT erotic either in GLBT or in erotic categories (as the author chooses to enter them), since erotic romance and erotica judges are more open to GLBT content. I can tell you that the vast majority of GLBT entered in the GLBT category (based on last year's numbers) is romance.
In short, we are doing what entrants requested of us, and I'm not entirely certain who is painting EPIC as bigoted for it and why. I would embrace any discussion you'd like to have about this, because I really do want to understand why you are upset. The consensus when we added a GLBT category was that the authors of the books wanted it. The category was well-populated last year. So, you'll have to excuse my confusion with attacks now.
Nothing in EPPIE is considered a permanent move (save the fact that it's a peer-judged professional award and every category must be able to support itself). If we have enough requests to change something and the ability to do so without sacrificing the integrity of the award and the assurances of an unbiased judging we work so hard to maintain, we do. Since we couldn't assure an unbiased judging (due to our pool of judges and NOT to the feelings of the committee on the matter), we took this step, and it's worked well so far. In fact, the committee was so upset at not being able to resolve this any other way that we didn't make the GLBT category the first year the entrants requested it.
Brenna
Hi Brenna,
Thank you for responding. I understand that you are responding to my public comments, and not to my TWO emails to the Chairwoman? I don't know why my letters have been ignored, or my concerns not addressed.
I'm not the only one voicing these concerns, that's for sure - Lee Rowan has given a public statement which she copied onto her Livejournal but of course I don't have access to the yahoo group to see the "debate" that I've been told is happening there. The only answer I've seen up to now was the Chairperson's reply to Pat Brown in which she said rather infamously "some of my best friends are gay" - which has caused no little consternation as you can imagine.
Ms MacLeod didn't mention to Ms Brown that anyone had asked the categories to be separated in the way you suggest. I'm surprised that she didn't use this excuse because that might have stayed my hand in making some of the comments I did.
What she said was: "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."
Her attitude is one that I took exception to, because she kept on about how she knew that GLBT people were "different" and that the romantic liaisons between GLBTs were different to those romantic liaisons of heterosexuals--but it did explain EPICs segregation when no other literary award I could find was doing so.
What I most objected to was the definition of contemporary Romance - couched in almost identical terms that the RWA attempted to do a year back - which caused so much furore that they were forced to change it away from "romance is defined as being between a man a woman" This is their new definition.
"According to the Romance Writers of America, the main plot of a romance novel must revolve around the two people as they develop romantic love for each other and work to build a relationship together. Both the conflict and the climax of the novel should be directly related to that core theme of developing a romantic relationship, although the novel can also contain subplots that do not specifically relate to the main characters' romantic love. Furthermore, a romance novel must have an "emotionally satisfying and optimistic ending." (WIKIPEDIA)
There is simply no place to put a gay romance in the EPPIES unless it's "lumped together" in the GBLT category where it has to compete with every other gay book, literature, slipstream, sci-fi, historical, god knows what.
You say that "many other contests" segregate in this way. Which ones specifically? Not the RITAS, not the Hugos, not the Edgars, not the IPPYS, not the Pulitzer, not the Booker, not the Whitbread, not the Locus, - so ... which? Granted the IPPY(for one) has a gay category, but gay books can be entered into any other category which makes sense. A gay novel about spacemen would be better suited in the sci-fi category rather than in the GBLT which is usually just for ordinary gay fiction.
In fact, as far as I can see the only contests that even mention things like gender, race or sexual orientation are those designed to give awards honouring books by or about those genders or sexual orientations such as the Stonewalls, the Lambdas... oh - and EPIC.
These aren't "attacks" Brenna, they are concerns that romance as a genre that seems to be taking a step back into fundamentalism and that the church goers who read romance want to keep GLBT at arms length in case it's catching or something. As I say, i wrote twice to the Chairwoman and she didn't reply, so I decided to let others know what I thought.
That being said, it's the definitions are what people are objecting to the most. And if you follow a flowchart method to try and place a gay historical romance you end up in only one "Bin" - the GLBT one. If I were to presumptuously place it in historical romance (where it belongs) I would automatically get a penalty - which would then lead to the unjust judging that you mention several times.
First EPIC says that "contemporary romance" is defined as "one central, monogamous, romantic relationship between a man and woman"
Ok - so my gay romance can't go there. It's not erotica, so I can't put it there.It can't go in historical, because only heterosexual romance is welcome there. So there's nowhere else for it.
I would - perhaps a year or so back - say "have mirror categories" for GLBT but that would be daft and unwieldy.
What I don't really understand is why you say GLBT romance are not getting a fair judging in the same category as hetero-romance. If you have readers for all of the genres, then Ms A is judging the Het books and Ms B is judging the GLBT books. I'm assuming they use the same marking sheet no matter which book they read - ticking boxes for plot, characterization etc - so why, if Ms B is comfortable reading GLBT book, would the GLBT book get a less than fair judging?
That's surprising as I know that Lee Rowan has posted on the EPIC list which has caused her being called narrow minded as far as I hear (not having access). I rather think that if you have some judges who only wish to read het books, surely its her prerogative to only wish to read GLBT books. So that's one person who uses the term bigotry - and several people have posted about this matter on Livejournal and wordpress and many authors agree with them. I have many responses on my two posts on the matter.
Good. I hope that you decide to mirror the professional award sites
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:American_literary_awards
and stop being discriminatory and creating - as Gehayi called it - a Lavendar Ghetto.
If the categories were open to all comers, that wouldn't be a problem at all.
Again - I really don't understand this logistical position.
Well, when it comes down to it - I'm not an EPIC member, I don't have a vote and I'm only one person . I'm quite sure that were you to have a vote of members they would agree to keep matters the way they are, but perhaps they think, as you seem to, that most award ceremonies work in this way. However, as you can see - they don't. I was sorry to have to withdraw my services as a judge (as my second email to Madam Chairperson stated) but - like Lee, I can't encourage segregation of this - or any - type.
Yours sincerely
Erastes
Erastes,
You know me from ERWA, I'm sure. I don't know what was said on what list. All I know is that you somehow got the mistaken idea that EPIC is bigoted against GLBT romance. If you'd give me a moment and some patience, I'd like to explain what we're dealing with here.
First of all, we have a separate GLBT category, as many contests do, BECAUSE the GLBT writing community asked us for one. For two years in a row, authors of M/M and F/F romance asked us to make a separate GLBT category, because none of us (myself included, as I was fielding complaints from judges and from author entrants both) felt the books were getting a fair judging in the romance categories. Now, before you blame EPIC for that, we were doing everything we could to ensure they would get a fair judging (asking for content information from authors and content nits from judges and so forth then avoiding giving GLBT to judges who expressed concern about it), but there is only so much we can do, and the current pool of judges weren't helping us mainstream them. The REQUEST to create a GLBT category seemed like a good one to grant. At the time we created the category, the authors who'd asked for it were happy with that, and I've only seen two complaints about it since then (averaging one complaint a year...not too bad, considering our track record).
Do I believe GLBT romance is romance? You know I do. I've even written in the subgenre. Can I get enough judges to accept it to ENSURE a fair judging to those who enter it in non-erotic romance categories? Maybe not at this time, and my first concern is a fair judging for all books entered. I CAN get enough judges to accept GBLT content, all the way around, to compete all GLBT non-erotic together and GLBT erotic either in GLBT or in erotic categories (as the author chooses to enter them), since erotic romance and erotica judges are more open to GLBT content. I can tell you that the vast majority of GLBT entered in the GLBT category (based on last year's numbers) is romance.
In short, we are doing what entrants requested of us, and I'm not entirely certain who is painting EPIC as bigoted for it and why. I would embrace any discussion you'd like to have about this, because I really do want to understand why you are upset. The consensus when we added a GLBT category was that the authors of the books wanted it. The category was well-populated last year. So, you'll have to excuse my confusion with attacks now.
Nothing in EPPIE is considered a permanent move (save the fact that it's a peer-judged professional award and every category must be able to support itself). If we have enough requests to change something and the ability to do so without sacrificing the integrity of the award and the assurances of an unbiased judging we work so hard to maintain, we do. Since we couldn't assure an unbiased judging (due to our pool of judges and NOT to the feelings of the committee on the matter), we took this step, and it's worked well so far. In fact, the committee was so upset at not being able to resolve this any other way that we didn't make the GLBT category the first year the entrants requested it.
Brenna
Hi Brenna,
Thank you for responding. I understand that you are responding to my public comments, and not to my TWO emails to the Chairwoman? I don't know why my letters have been ignored, or my concerns not addressed.
I'm not the only one voicing these concerns, that's for sure - Lee Rowan has given a public statement which she copied onto her Livejournal but of course I don't have access to the yahoo group to see the "debate" that I've been told is happening there. The only answer I've seen up to now was the Chairperson's reply to Pat Brown in which she said rather infamously "some of my best friends are gay" - which has caused no little consternation as you can imagine.
Ms MacLeod didn't mention to Ms Brown that anyone had asked the categories to be separated in the way you suggest. I'm surprised that she didn't use this excuse because that might have stayed my hand in making some of the comments I did.
What she said was: "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."
Her attitude is one that I took exception to, because she kept on about how she knew that GLBT people were "different" and that the romantic liaisons between GLBTs were different to those romantic liaisons of heterosexuals--but it did explain EPICs segregation when no other literary award I could find was doing so.
Do I believe GLBT romance is romance?
What I most objected to was the definition of contemporary Romance - couched in almost identical terms that the RWA attempted to do a year back - which caused so much furore that they were forced to change it away from "romance is defined as being between a man a woman" This is their new definition.
"According to the Romance Writers of America, the main plot of a romance novel must revolve around the two people as they develop romantic love for each other and work to build a relationship together. Both the conflict and the climax of the novel should be directly related to that core theme of developing a romantic relationship, although the novel can also contain subplots that do not specifically relate to the main characters' romantic love. Furthermore, a romance novel must have an "emotionally satisfying and optimistic ending." (WIKIPEDIA)
There is simply no place to put a gay romance in the EPPIES unless it's "lumped together" in the GBLT category where it has to compete with every other gay book, literature, slipstream, sci-fi, historical, god knows what.
You say that "many other contests" segregate in this way. Which ones specifically? Not the RITAS, not the Hugos, not the Edgars, not the IPPYS, not the Pulitzer, not the Booker, not the Whitbread, not the Locus, - so ... which? Granted the IPPY(for one) has a gay category, but gay books can be entered into any other category which makes sense. A gay novel about spacemen would be better suited in the sci-fi category rather than in the GBLT which is usually just for ordinary gay fiction.
In fact, as far as I can see the only contests that even mention things like gender, race or sexual orientation are those designed to give awards honouring books by or about those genders or sexual orientations such as the Stonewalls, the Lambdas... oh - and EPIC.
These aren't "attacks" Brenna, they are concerns that romance as a genre that seems to be taking a step back into fundamentalism and that the church goers who read romance want to keep GLBT at arms length in case it's catching or something. As I say, i wrote twice to the Chairwoman and she didn't reply, so I decided to let others know what I thought.
That being said, it's the definitions are what people are objecting to the most. And if you follow a flowchart method to try and place a gay historical romance you end up in only one "Bin" - the GLBT one. If I were to presumptuously place it in historical romance (where it belongs) I would automatically get a penalty - which would then lead to the unjust judging that you mention several times.
First EPIC says that "contemporary romance" is defined as "one central, monogamous, romantic relationship between a man and woman"
Ok - so my gay romance can't go there. It's not erotica, so I can't put it there.It can't go in historical, because only heterosexual romance is welcome there. So there's nowhere else for it.
I would - perhaps a year or so back - say "have mirror categories" for GLBT but that would be daft and unwieldy.
What I don't really understand is why you say GLBT romance are not getting a fair judging in the same category as hetero-romance. If you have readers for all of the genres, then Ms A is judging the Het books and Ms B is judging the GLBT books. I'm assuming they use the same marking sheet no matter which book they read - ticking boxes for plot, characterization etc - so why, if Ms B is comfortable reading GLBT book, would the GLBT book get a less than fair judging?
I'm not entirely certain who is painting EPIC as bigoted for it and why.
That's surprising as I know that Lee Rowan has posted on the EPIC list which has caused her being called narrow minded as far as I hear (not having access). I rather think that if you have some judges who only wish to read het books, surely its her prerogative to only wish to read GLBT books. So that's one person who uses the term bigotry - and several people have posted about this matter on Livejournal and wordpress and many authors agree with them. I have many responses on my two posts on the matter.
Nothing in EPPIE is considered a permanent move
Good. I hope that you decide to mirror the professional award sites
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
and stop being discriminatory and creating - as Gehayi called it - a Lavendar Ghetto.
(save the fact that it's a peer-judged professional award and every category must be able to support itself).
If the categories were open to all comers, that wouldn't be a problem at all.
If we have enough requests to change something and the ability to do so without sacrificing the integrity of the award and the assurances of an unbiased judging we work so hard to maintain, we do. Since we couldn't assure an unbiased judging (due to our pool of judges and NOT to the feelings of the committee on the matter),
Again - I really don't understand this logistical position.
we took this step, and it's worked well so far. In fact, the committee was so upset at not being able to resolve this any other way that we didn't make the GLBT category the first year the entrants requested it.
Well, when it comes down to it - I'm not an EPIC member, I don't have a vote and I'm only one person . I'm quite sure that were you to have a vote of members they would agree to keep matters the way they are, but perhaps they think, as you seem to, that most award ceremonies work in this way. However, as you can see - they don't. I was sorry to have to withdraw my services as a judge (as my second email to Madam Chairperson stated) but - like Lee, I can't encourage segregation of this - or any - type.
Yours sincerely
Erastes
