Year of Submissions: Year ??? – I’ll just say 2023

Woo, year of submissions. I’ve done these posts in the past but since going more indie, I submitted to others way less and less. There’s almost no point in doing so when it feels like I have a better chance of getting hit by lightning than getting a story accepted because racism in spec fic is still extremely ever-present and well fought for by usually the same people who feign surprise that, oh hey, they really don’t like stories that does not center Whiteness and full commits to that sentiment with a bleeding, iron passion. This has been an issue that has been talked about since the 90s and well before so it’s pretty obvious this behavior is by design, not by mistake or there would have been some pretty big changes by now. So, overall, if your story doesn’t look like something that would have been read at a Klan rally in the ‘80s while passing the time, you might as well stand outside and wait for the lighting to hit.

This year (and a bit of last) was moreso being asked to submit stories. I was asked by Ekpeki to submit a story to an anthology he’s working on called Yemoja Tears: Water, Bodies & Bodies of Water, which is about the water crisis and all the writers are from the African diaspora. I crafted a brand new sci-fi short story for it called “Stalwart”. There is a ferret and the ferret is cute.

I also was asked by James Spooner, creator of AfroPunk, to submit a story for the anthology that’s now out called Black Punk Now. A lot of my punk works are in long form (Dreamer and The Glassman, in other words) but I had some smaller one-shots. The one I sent in didn’t get accepted (part of the issue was probably space since they were looking for short works to fill the gap and that’s a derpin’ weakness of mine and I was asked out of the blue) but the book does look interesting and I do hope for a Black Punk Now 2 so I can have something ready for that. But I do creys when I see all the publicity the book has gotten ;_; I crey muches.

It isn’t at all surprising at this point that the only times I’ve ever gotten publishing opportunities is mainly from other Black people. Nightlight is the first to buy my work, I was asked by Spooner and Ekpeki to submit works, all Black people from different parts of the globe and country. And it isn’t because I’m not submitting to White publications. I’ve been rejected by all of them. I’m not self-rejecting, they’re doing it for me – and to a big amount of others who look like me, judging by the 2022 Black in Spec Fic report (most current as of this writing). 6.8% Black writers accepted is better than the 1.9% in 2015 but 6.8% in 2022/2023? It’s f#cking abysmal. If it were 6.8% the 1960s and increased from there to something substantial and very double digit now, sure. 6.8% after the new millennium/century? Absolutely pathetic, how dedicated to lazy and prejudice do you have to be to keep things barely over 5% in almost a decade?

All in all, I usually don’t submit works because it’s pretty much a pointless endeavor, judging by the data. Instead, I just sit, put out my own works, and watch the magazines whine and cry that they don’t make enough money to stay open or see whinging on File 770 that the old sci-fi clubs of yore are dying because young people don’t want to join. (They were straight up surprised that young people in China actually showed up to a sci-fi convention – as if young people didn’t have or like sci-fi conventions, especially ones that weren’t White. Which means: Time to ruin all the young people’s fun with a bunch of dumb, pointless, hurtful rules and drive them all out until it’s full of a bunch of old fogeys again. Old White fogeys, preferably.)

I submitted The Glassman to the Stoker Awards but since there’s no White people in the book or White cultural aspects I’m trying to “ascend” my characters, who are Black, Chicano and Afro-Chicano, to, and it’s a story about Chicano and Black people that has zero mention of gangs, drugs, “illegal immigrants”, and crime – it’s just a guy in the punk music scene that’s trying to cope with the fact he now has odd abilities over glass and his family and bandmembers trying to help him cope – that means the book is going to go nowhere on the reading list. It wouldn’t fly at a GOP get-together so it’s certainly not going to leave the ground on that list. It’s basically a one-time thing for the most part. I did chat with L. Marie Wood, the vice president of HWA (Horror Writers Association) at Multiverse, and she definitely wanted me to submit my book because of the valid reason that the reading list won’t diversify if no one diverse submits to it. But, also HWA dug their own grave pretty darn deep about keeping horror writers of color out for an extremely long time. They only gave the award to their first Black writer in this millennium/century alone. That means just about no one at HWA thought Black people could write horror at all (they’re literally terrified to hear about our regular lived experiences, even if we’re just talking about mundane things, they seriously think we can’t write speculative horror?) until after the turn of the millennium. They sincerely can’t expect a great big water burst of diverse writers to flood their ranks and be eager to support – just so they can be shut out big time again. I get Wood’s perspective – and the fact she is a Black horror writer herself and one of the few in the upper ranks so she wants to do the work the rest of HWA zombie- level slow walked – buuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuut, if they’re not awarding diverse works or diversifying their Stoker reading list more, it’s pointless to submit. Sisyphean even. That’s dumb if HWA thinks this is sustainable. Wood has the right idea but it’s the rest of HWA I’m moreso side-eyeing because, historically speaking, being very diversity-adverse is kinda their dedicated thing. They find the literal existence of BIPoC absolutely and rapturously horrifying and it shows. That’s an HWA problem that’s much bigger than Wood can tackle herself. And others in the higher ups of HWA and the mass membership need to also tackle.

I very honestly do not want to be treated like Octavia Butler. She was done super dirty by SWFA and the rest of the (extremely White) spec fic community. They’re only giving her flowers now because she’s dead. And they basically tokenized her big time when she was alive – and were proud of that. That’s alarming. And it seems they also do this so they kind of don’t have to recognize the Black and PoC writers, especially the darker skinned ones, of now. Just focus on the chick who’s work became poignant once she cracked her head on the pavement and keeled over. Because if she was alive, it would be very Business As Usual. Dead people don’t complain. Dead people don’t say, “Wait a minute, that’s not what happened, you weren’t the good guy in the situation at all.” Dead people don’t do anything. That’s what makes her perfect to the SFWA and everyone in between: she’s dead and thus can be propped up as “look! We found one! Aren’t we such a forward-thinking place?” It comes off as pretty obvious to me and as a Black queer writer, reaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaally freaking concerning. I don’t exactly like the idea of me falling out and passing away just so my works can be seen for what they are. It’s not like my wording or the writing magically improved itself the moment after I die. They can keep that bullsh#t. If Neil Gaiman or J. K. Rowlings doesn’t have to bust their heads on concrete and die to get their propers, it should be the exact same for writers who aren’t White. That’s hella morbid and beyond demented, speaking as a Black writer. I would rather have my works appreciated because of what I wrote, not because my life nosedived into the world of death.

These folks are weird – and not in a good way.

I don’t plan to do much submitting works in the future, as per usual. I certainly appreciate being asked and approached though. At least I’m not super wasting my time with near-promised rejections. I mean, I was rejected by Black Punk Now but at least it isn’t because of “Oh noes, Black people are in this story and not being brutally murdered for our enjoyment” but actual, bona fide regular reasons. I’m way more chill about that than “Ah, they say they want diversity but in reality, they want stuff Strom Thurmond would like.” A National Front guy got into Fantasy & Science Fiction this past year. Deselected afterwards and only after it took a twitter storm to point out why having Mr. 14 words wasn’t great and have the story rescinded. This guy also was a juror in HWA for the Stoker Awards in 2016 (the award I just submitted my Very-Not-Pro-National-Front novel to, that award). Deselected after a furor it caused to have a card-carrying racist but still, he keeps getting selected time and time again. And he’s the one they’re catching but he certainly isn’t the only one there. It pretty much says it all, as far as I’m concerned as a Black writer, why submitting to these presses is pretty much pointless. It doesn’t mean stories will stop existing, just the presses eventually. No point in having my story rejected so they can have room for David Duke’s British loquacious nephew. What a waste of time.