Dear Sir,
Though you have taken time to give a poor explanation of why there are no women in your anthology, I have yet to see you give any explanation as to why there are no writers of color in it, either. If you could please kindly provide this answer, as many of us would like to know, I would be grateful.
All the best,
Tempest
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I'm a writer, most often committing acts of genre (fantasy, science fiction, and other stretches of the imagination). You can find my short stories in many and various magazines and anthologies and podcasts. In addition to being a writer I also engage in activism and fandom -- often both at once.
Is there a pool on what the likely response will be on this one? I’m betting on, “I don’t know the race of the folks who send in stories,” but let’s not rule out “no people of color submitted stories.” “POC don’t write science fiction” has a decent chance, but I suspect that “what? Paul Di Filippo isn’t black?” is a longshot.
Don’t forget, Adam, the possibility of “no stories by POC blew my mind!”
“POC don’t write science fiction” has a decent chance
As I have said to Mr. Ashley, that betrays either bias or an ignorance of the current field. See Hugo Awards for confirmation of same.
From what he’s said already online, I’m betting ignorance of the current field: which is odd, considering that he’s written a big fat three volume history of SF. WTF?
But likely it is, like his Mammoth Books of Whatever, just a big fat three volume history of White Straight Guy SF.
I’ll add I have not read it so I don’t actually know that this is the case. Maybe he actually knows everything there is to know about all the SF in the world and still says things like “women write SF this way and men write it this way” and “I just didn’t happen to know any stories by women that were mindblowing,” and just didn’t happen to know any stories by PoC or gay people that would be appropriate for his anthology.
I mean, that’s possible.
On MARS.
I think the ignorance is of the current field. I’m sure he’s fine on the history, but he’s not keeping up.