Two important links for diversity in sff
M Sereno talks about the first leap, the first time she sent poetry out.
To submit to a place I must have at least a little trust in it. Rejection is fine. Having my language labelled strange, being questioned yet again about the reality and reasonableness of my experiences, being asked to explain the specificity of Pilipinas (all the versions of it I hold in my head), being asked to water it down for the comprehension of a Western majority– that is something I did not think I could bear.
This post talks about why we do things the way we do at Stone Telling, better than I could have said myself.
Rose Lemberg talks about reading, writing, submitting
Sending work is difficult. Completing and sending work as a multiply marginalized writer, as an ESL writer, is difficult. Rejections are difficult. Getting acceptances for pieces you almost trashed is difficult. Finding the courage to write in your own voice, rather than trying to fit in with what seems to be the normative/high-prestige/saleable stuff is difficult. Finding a community is a real blessing, a deep breath after years of slow suffocation. Discovering that this community is not monolithic, that here are rifts and conflicts and deep hurt, is difficult on a whole new level.
Don’t lose faith. Keep reading, writing, and submitting.
& really all I have to say about both these posts is YES YES YES.
I want to add content but I can’t all I have is feels; THEY ARE SO RIGHT and there’s so much we have not talked about about how HARD it is to send stuff out when you’re multiply marginalized, how hard it is to trust, how often that trust is broken, how scary it can be to send stuff out not because of rejections but because of dismissive, othering, dehumanizing responses.
DO click through and read them both. They lay out why there is so much more to diversity than saying “we welcome submissions from people of all backgrounds”.
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