Well done, EPIC

[erastes]

 

I've been one of the first in line to criticise EPIC over the past few years, in particular with their apparent "corralling" of GLBT books - last year's categories were frankly a joke and I was pretty vocal about it, but it seems that this year they are thinking things through.  This year every single category - yes, even YA, and religious (hurrah) - is open equally to GLBT books.

According to Brenna (former President of EPIC)'s post here
http://brennalyonsden.blogspot.com/2009/06/face-of-change.html
There are, of COURSE, bigots who are attempting to queer the pitch (excuse the pun, perhaps that should be "straighten the pitch") but I don't think they will succeed. 

First in line to applaud.

Comments

[angelabenedetti.livejournal.com]

This is awesome, definitely. :D

Angie

[emeraldsedai.livejournal.com]

The post and the comment thread provided me with some interesting reading. I'd never really thought about the sequestering of GLBT-themed material because "a category of its own" still kind of felt new and cool and better-than-before to me. (Note to self: Remember that "Better than nothing" is not equal to "Good enough"! Sheesh!)

The idea of simply including these books in their genre categories makes perfect sense, and I'm only sorry that EPIC has to give special "outs" to judges who can't deal. Better Than Nothing, but we can keep imagining a Good Enough world where that will no longer be necessary.

Thanks for the link.

[stacia-seaman.livejournal.com]

I"m very happy about this decision. Of course, the judges are allowed to opt out of GLBT, m/m, f/f, menage . . . why so many otherwise GLBT-friendly people refuse to judge f/f I'll never know, but there you go.

[lee-rowan.livejournal.com]

It'll be interesting to see what happens. Since Epic originally created the glbt category because same-sex-content books never had a prayer of winning in other categories, it made a certain amount of sense. In fact, I do think adding a 'gay romance' and 'lesbian romance' to the many, many other categories (contemporary, historical, paranormal, inspirational, who knows..?) makes sense, too, because that's such a broad category.

I am completely in favor of letting people opt-out according to their prejudices. I would never, ever want to be stuck judging "inspirational" romance unless I knew there would be something Wiccan, Buddhist, or other-than-fundie-Christian story in the works, and even then I wouldn't want to, because I'd mark the book off every time somebody started quoting chapter and verse. If a judge can't go in with an open mind, s/he shouldn't judge in that category.