Today's newsletter touches on the latest SFF Twitter nonsense, to make a bigger comment about the danger of assuming that our proximity to literature makes us more enlightened and kinder critters.
We have to make choices to lean into better systems all the time.
Whether we're up for that challenge... well, only time will tell.
#WritingCommunity #Writing #WritersOfCoSo #SFF https://mlclark.substack.com/p/will-literary-communities-save-us
(Having read your thoughtful article)
Quite aside from weakness of the evidence adduced to support the thesis, what do you think? Is "mainstream SFF in a bad place"? Or a good place? Or no particular place at all? And if it's in a "bad place," how does one get it out of there, or is it necessarily in a bad place because it's mainstream?
Terrific question. Mind if I postpone a reply for next week's newsletter? Because this merits a fuller response.
I'm privy to more of the industry's full goings-on than some, and as I noted yesterday on the bird, there's a cruelty that comes with the parasocial nature of our industry. But there's also a rudderless quality to the culture as a whole that has placed most of us in a passive relationship to market forces and regionalist concerns. So: more on that in the next. Thank you.