Sunil Patel Interview

By Carl Slaughter: Sunil Patel talks about studying under Nancy Kress, Cat Rambo, Mary Robinette Kowal, and Ted Chiang; what it’s like to work with Mighty Mur; his duties as assistant editor of Mothership Zeta, the newest member of the Escape Artists family; his criteria for reviewing for Lightspeed; and how he broke into Asimov’s and Galaxy’s Edge as a newcomer; and his experience with science fiction plays.

CARL SLAUGHTER: Every new writer wants to break into Asimov’s.  Only a tiny fraction succeed.  How did you do it?

SUNIL PATEL: I submitted a story and Sheila Williams accepted it. Next question!

Okay, so that’s not the whole story, since many people submit stories to Asimov’s that are not accepted. In fact, I was and continue to be one of those people. The secret lies in a two-word mantra I have borrowed and internalized from Rose Lemberg: Don’t self-reject. The submission guidelines note that Asimov’s rarely publishes flash pieces and occasionally publishes humorous pieces, so I knew a humorous flash piece would be a hard sell. But I was encouraged by having gotten a personal note from Sheila regarding my first submission, which had been a humorous flash piece. “A Partial List of Lists I Have Lost Over Time” is a list story told as a series of lists, and I had identified two markets I thought it would be perfect for, both of which rejected it. For my third submission, most markets I thought would be a better fit for the story already had something of mine, and I saw on Submission Grinder that Asimov’s was rejecting quickly, so I figured I’d get that rejection out of the way. I never expected to get a rewrite request that turned into a sale. So that’s how I did it: I let the editor decide whether my story was a good fit for her magazine.

CS: Same question for Mike Resnick’s Galaxy’s Edge.

SP: Galaxy’s Edge does not have open submissions, so it can be a daunting market to crack. I was discussing with frequent contributor Tina Gower about the types of stories Mike Resnick liked, and among the general elements she listed were things like “humor” and “emotional heart” and “totally weird and way out there,” which exactly described “The Man Who Saved Manhattan,” a flash piece I hadn’t been able to find a home for. Now, I had shared an elevator with Mike Resnick at Worldcon and was too intimidated to speak to him and ask if I could submit to Galaxy’s Edge, but Tina very helpfully put in a good word for me, and he was happy to see a couple of my stories. So I sent him “The Man Who Saved Manhattan”…and received a contract the next night! (Sometimes he is fast, and sometimes he takes the usual six weeks or so. He form-rejected the other story I sent him.) So that’s how I did it: I saw a market that said “invitation only” and wrangled myself an invitation. This is a very common story if you talk to other people who have published in Galaxy’s Edge; I truly believe that if I had talked to Mike in that elevator and asked if I could submit, he would have said yes. (I finally officially met him at Worldcon this year, and he was delighted and encouraged me to send him something else. I did. He bought it.)

CS: What kind of feedback have you gotten from editors about your stories?

SP: I can interpret this question two ways, so I’ll answer the first way, which is about personal rejections. I have a love/hate relationship with them: I love the praise that often comes with them but hate that it’s not an acceptance. I’ve gotten a wide variety of feedback, very little of which I have taken to heart; I rarely revise stories in response to personal rejections unless something does resonate with me. Normally I just believe in my story. You think this flash piece does not do enough with its concept, that it should be expanded into a longer piece? Sorry, I conceived it this way and I like it how it is, and hey, this other editor agrees. You think the story starts out too slowly and needs to be heavily restructured? Sorry, I consider the structure a feature rather than a bug, and hey, this other editor agrees. You think the ending is weak and I should make the mother more sympathetic? Sor—wait, you are totally right, thank you, C.C. Finlay. Any feedback you get is one editor’s opinion, and it’s only one editor’s opinion that rejects your story. But it’s also one editor’s opinion that accepts your story. Listen to what works, discard what doesn’t, believe in the story you are trying to tell.

CS: What exactly is involved in your work with Mothership Zeta? Responsibilities, goals, experiences, benefits.

SP: I am Assistant Editor of Fiction, which means I handle pretty much everything related to the fiction that appears in Mothership Zeta (Karen Bovenmyer handles the nonfiction, but she also helps manage the slush). Obviously one of my most important responsibilities is choosing the stories during open submissions, and I read a huge amount of slush personally in addition to the vetted stories selected by my amazing slush readers. I try to give personal rejections when I can, and then I send the cream of the crop up to Mur for her to make the final decisions (which are very tough). I also solicit authors to send us stories outside of open submissions; as much outreach as we try to do, our slush does not have as many stories by marginalized authors as we’d like to be able to choose from. Once we have our stories, Mur and I figure out which ones go in which issue, and then we edit! Some stories take more editing than others, but I’ve found the back-and-forth very rewarding and so have the writers. We end up with an even better version of the story they submitted. Then it’s time to write some story introductions and editorials and put together the issue. As I said, we publish both fiction and nonfiction, and Karen and I like to pair stories with nonfiction pieces when possible, so our table of contents is meant to represent a cohesive reading experience, cover to cover. I review the issue to make sure formatting didn’t get lost in the ebook conversion or typo goblins haven’t wreaked unforeseen havoc. And I’ve left out so many little tasks; you never know what goes into publishing a magazine until you’re behind the scenes yourself. The October issue is ready to come out, which means it’s time to start editing stories for the January issue. It’s a lot of work, but I am so proud of all the stories we publish. I hope we inspire more fun SFF fiction, whatever your definition of “fun” (ours, as anyone who reads us knows, is not what you might think at first).

CS: What’s it like working for Mighty Mur?

SP: Mur is a wonderful boss because she respects me and appreciates the work I do (both privately and publicly). We don’t always see eye-to-eye on stories, but she listens to my reasons for championing a story, and sometimes she will accept a story she doesn’t feel as passionately about because she recognizes that if I love it so much, a certain subset of readers will too. In the end, she makes the decision that is best for the magazine. I frequently look to her for guidance since she has far more experience in the industry, but just as often she comes to me and Karen for our advice. I don’t know what it’s like at other magazines, but I feel that Mothership Zeta is a real team effort rather than one head honcho calling the shots on everything. Mur trusts both of us to handle our respective duties, leaving her to focus on the Big Decisions of running a magazine. Plus we’re all friends, so we’re constantly chatting in our little Google Hangout about our triumphs and woes in between talking magazine stuff. It’s a fun virtual office for our fun magazine.

CS: What are your standards and strategies as a reviewer for Lightspeed?

SP: I do not review books by white men. For the last several years, Strange Horizons has been publishing their “SF count” of representation in SF reviewing, and it was eye-opening for me to see how disproportionately books by women and people of color are reviewed, so when I took the position, I decided to do my small part in shifting the balance. To his credit, John Joseph Adams (a white man!) completely supported my decision, and I must admit I felt a small sense of pride in being a positive part of the 2015 SF Count. I have been trying to review more books by women of color, as too often diversity can manifest as “white women + men of color.” In each one of my quarterly columns, I review at least one young adult book because I believe there are great books being published for young adults that adult readers of Lightspeed should know about. When the announcement of the Locus Awards finalists revealed that people seemed unaware of the many women publishing books actually written for and marketed to young adults, I scrapped half my November column and decided to review three young adult books by women of color. Because I could. I have no idea whether anyone reads my column or whether I have any influence on the reading habits of the general Lightspeed readership, but I want to use my power for good. I only publish reviews of books I can recommend, even if I had some criticisms or I felt that it simply wasn’t for me but recognized that other readers would appreciate it more. My goal is always to increase your TBR pile by diversifying your reading.

CS: What did you learn from Nancy Kress?

SP: Nancy Kress had many insightful things to say during our two weeks together at Taos Toolbox; I want to go back and read all my notes now! She made me think about worldbuilding in new ways, providing so many important questions regarding law and economy and technology. She identified my tendency to sometimes undercut the power of a sentence by not ending it on the strongest word (though sometimes it’s deliberate). But the one thing I took away from her that I always remember when writing is her Swimming Pool Theory, where she uses a swimmer kicking off from the end of a pool as a metaphor for how much exposition and inaction you can get away with. Just as a stronger kick will allow a swimmer to coast further without having to exert themselves again, a strong narrative hook (KABOOM!!) buys you a few more hundred words of dithering or flashbacks before you must move the action forward again. And of course the converse is true: if you begin with a light hook, then you will lose the reader quicker if you don’t keep swimming.

CS: Same question for Ted Chiang.

SP: I’d be lying if I said the opportunity to study with Ted Chiang didn’t influence my decision to attend Clarion. We got Ted right after Kelly Link, and as we discovered, every instructor had a different vibe and focus. One of the most important things I got from Ted was the vocabulary of expressionistic vs. naturalistic modes, the idea that a story will generally fall more into one or the other and being conscious of what mode you’re working in tells you how much you can get away with and what the reader will expect. If you’re writing hard science fiction full of equations and data (naturalistic), it will be difficult for the reader to swallow the sudden appearance of sentient melting lollipops that emerge from cavities (expressionistic). I also learned about time travel using wormholes and relativity, which was a trip, let me tell you.

CS: Same question for Mary Robinette Kowal.

SP: Look, I could write a whole essay about what I’ve learned from Mary Robinette Kowal, both as a writer and a human being. She’s one of my role models in the industry, and I believe that if you are not reading her fiction and following her on social media, you are doing yourself a disservice. That woman can teach you more about writing in ten minutes with a boot than most writers could teach you in a day. I’ve had the privilege of studying with her a couple times, in her Short Story Intensive online workshop as well as at the Writing Excuses Retreat. The Short Story Intensive is hands-down the best workshop I’ve ever taken, and my main takeaway was the ability to outline. Whenever writers talked about outlining, I had envisioned very complicated outlines like the ones we did in high school to write papers, but it turns out that you can just write a list of things like “Pirates!” or “Sandeep reveals a terrible secret” or whatever. With this newfound power (and the various structural tools Mary gave us surrounding the MICE Quotient [now renamed MACE]), I was able to go from a basic thumbnail of a story Saturday night to a first draft Sunday afternoon! (Funny story: I actually forwarded Mary a rejection for that story because the editor specifically praised how well structured it was, and she deserved some of the credit. She was appropriately pleased.) I now had the confidence and experience to be able to draft a story from an outline, which came in very handy at Clarion, not to mention when writing my novel.

CS: Same question for Cat Rambo.

SP: I took a six-week online workshop with Cat, which was a good reintroduction to the basics after being out of the fiction game for a while. I also took a couple two-hour workshops on specific topics, and I particularly appreciated the one on description since I consider description one of my weak points as a writer. Both in that workshop and the six-week workshop, she had so many great tips, like the use of specific verbs to paint a picture of a character and choosing key sensory details to evoke a larger picture in the reader’s mind. She emphasized moving beyond visuals and using touch and smell to draw the reader in.

CS: How does your work in speculative theater overlap with your work in print?

SP: I don’t think there’s a direct overlap, but my work in theater was the creative outlet I needed for a few years before I decided to focus on publishing fiction. I’ve spoken about applying playwriting techniques in fiction before, but to be honest, it’s not something I consciously do when writing, though because one of my strengths is dialogue, sometimes my scenes do tend to be very dialogue-driven, relying on witty banter, and I naturally try to avoid having too many “sets” because I don’t want to describe new locations. One of the clearest ways it’s overlapped, however, is that my experience producing The Pub from Another World, a night of short science fiction/fantasy/horror plays chosen from open submissions, was my first taste of what it’s like to be an editor, which I discovered I enjoy quite a bit.

CS: What’s on the horizon for Sunil Patel?

SP: As I said, I’ve really enjoyed editing, both for Mothership Zeta and for Lightspeed’s People of Colo(u)r Destroy Science Fiction! Personal Essays, and I hope to do more of it in the future. Pending a successful Kickstarter, I will be editing a special POC Take Over Fantastic Stories of the Imagination issue, but in addition to that, I’ve assembled an anthology of reprint flash fiction by writers of color that I’m very excited to share with people via the Kickstarter. Meanwhile, I have all these Clarion stories to revise, and I continue to work on my young adult superhero novel with a goal of submitting it to agents next year. Plus I have at least eight stories coming out in magazines and anthologies between now and April, including my first appearance in Lightspeed! But I may be most excited about my second appearance in Book Smugglers for a story called “You May Perhaps Be Interested in My Thoughts on Space Questers Seasons 1-5” that will be in the Quarterly Almanac in December. It might be the story I was put on this planet to write because no one else would write it but me. It’s fun and creepy and there’s a telepathic dog thing. What more could you ask for?

42 thoughts on “Sunil Patel Interview

  1. uh…Carl, I don’t know when this interview was done, but today in my RSS feed there was an article from the Book Smugglers stating this:

    This past weekend, several women put forward their encounters with a well-known male SFF author, citing his history of manipulation, gaslighting, grooming behavior, and objectification of women in the speculative fiction community. We have read all of the accounts. We are listening to the stories. We stand with the women who have been the subject of this author’s behavior.

    In light of these revelations, we have made the decision to no longer publish Sunil Patel’s work. We have removed The Merger from sale, and have canceled all forthcoming short stories and essays with the author.

    As members of the SFF community, as publishers, and as women, we cannot in good conscience support this author’s work any longer.

    Anybody else know anything about this?

  2. In the interview, he discusses his relationship with 6 prominent people in speculative fiction, 4 of whom are women. I’m wondering if we’re going to hear from any of them. I’m also wondering what the specifics are. Because these posts don’t relate detailed stories, just (mostly) annonymous accusations. And we haven’t heard from him. Not saying he’s guilty, not saying he’s innocent. Just saying I want to know more.

  3. Carl Slaughter: In the interview, he discusses his relationship with 6 prominent people in speculative fiction, 4 of whom are women. I’m wondering if we’re going to hear from any of them.

    It wouldn’t matter what those women say, would it? Because positive experiences on their parts would not nullify the negative experiences of other women.

    What I’m more interested in hearing is who suggested this piece, and when it was suggested. Because it looks like an attempt to manage PR to me. 😐

  4. Of course, the women mentioned in the article are all basically above him in the food chain.
    People frequently behave differently towards those with something to offer them than they do towards those they perceive as less powerful than themselves.

  5. And we haven’t heard from him. Not saying he’s guilty, not saying he’s innocent. Just saying I want to know more.

    He has responded, and his response did not deny accusations.

  6. What I’m more interested in hearing is who suggested this piece, and when it was suggested. Because it looks like an attempt to manage PR to me.

    The interview was in the works for several months and the above news items were not posted before I submitted the interview.

  7. ULTRAGOTHA: Also, victims don’t owe Carl, us, or anyone else specifics of their abuse.

    I’ll be very satisfied if the victims choose to keep the details private. A lot of people want to volunteer to be the jury of the internet, but I find that indistinguishable from gossiping at the emotional expense of someone who feels a real injury.

  8. Some words and concepts have fallen out of favor that might still be useful.

    “Cad” is such a word.

  9. Jim C. Hines: I really knew very little about Sunil Patel before I read the interview. Once I knew the sway he held over certain projects, I  had a context for understanding the accusations.

    I decided to run the interview, and report the accusations in the Scroll.

  10. Mike – That wasn’t intended as criticism of you or your choices to run the interview and the Scroll item. I apologize if it came off that way.

  11. IMHO, the timing feels very odd because it seems to imply a statement is being made about “current events,” but it isn’t very clear what one should understand that statement to be.

    I could interpret it being run on this particular day as any one of:
    – Implied statement of support, “business as usual,”
    – Context for understanding the accusations,
    – Complete coincidence; this just happened to be slated to run when the accusations went public
    – “We’ve got this article in the queue, let’s bump it to the top now that the spotlight’s on him”

    Any kind of indication within the post would probably help readers understand the timing as intended, rather than letting them leap to their own conclusions 🙂 Of course, these situations are always very delicate, and people are inclined to read a lot into things that would otherwise seem trivial :-/

    So it goes. As always, thanks for keeping us well-informed 🙂

  12. I do not review books by white men.

    I find this troubling. It is one thing to seek out new perspectives. Everyone should be doing that.

    It is another to purposefully avoid all works from a segment of the population based on race/gender.


    Regards,
    Dann

  13. Dann, I’m fairly sure Patel does at least read SF written by white male authors. If he wishes to promote writers of color or who are also women in his book reviews, that’s his choice. It smacks of promotionalism to me, but mileage may vary on that.

  14. @Dann,

    I’m pretty sure you know this argument well, so shall we just take the whole back-and-forth as read, eh?

  15. @Dann

    Also, it’s not like white males are being overlooked by other reviewers. This is just one person, writing his column as he sees fit. If he chooses to only review women and people of color…well, that’s making up, even a little bit, for all the times those people have been skipped over.

  16. @redheadedfemme

    Also, it’s not like white males are being overlooked by other reviewers.

    Which is why my response was not “pity all those overlooked white men”.

    IMHO, dismissing any segment of work based on something other than quality is a poor method for growing an expansive genre.

    His approach dismisses the ability of those non-SWM authors to write work that can compete with the work of SWM authors.

    By white knighting the issue, he also denies those authors the agency to learn and grow in their craft so that they continually improve their product.

    His approach is deceptive towards readers. Unless he blatantly indicates that he has artificially restricted his range of reading, his reviews present a deceptive perspective on the range of works available. That approach also denigrates the reader’s ability to seek out new authors.

    I fully support efforts to be more inclusive in the genre. His approach crosses a line that is better left uncrossed, IMHO.

    Regards,
    Dann

  17. If the goal is to change representation to one more proportional of the population, then yes, dismissing segments of work can be a good method. If it is believed that there are enough good works to read anyhow.

    It might be that he denies some authors the agency to learn, but is that not true anyhow unless he reviews absolutely everything he reads? Is it his duty to review absolutely every existing author?

    His approach is not in any way deceptive if he tells you exactly what he is doing.

    You have heard this before. No need to rehash this discussion for the umpteenth time.

  18. There is, come to think of it, a political analogue. In the british parliament, women are underrepresented by a large degree for the labour party. Everyone agrees they want diversity and a more proportional representation. But there are two ways:

    1) The slow one in which every new election, there will be as many women as men elected. In 1-2 generations, proportionality will be achieved.

    2) The fast one where you elect women to a higher degree to meet proportionality at a quicker pace.

    You have one person who do not want to wait for 1-2 to generations to see more proportionality and you see that as a line that should not be crossed. Why not instead try to see it from his perspective? That the line was crossed when PoC were deselected for generations?

  19. Dann on October 19, 2016 at 7:20 am said:

    Which is why my response was not “pity all those overlooked white men”.

    IMHO, dismissing any segment of work based on something other than quality is a poor method for growing an expansive genre.

    His approach dismisses the ability of those non-SWM authors to write work that can compete with the work of SWM authors.

    By white knighting the issue, he also denies those authors the agency to learn and grow in their craft so that they continually improve their product.

    His approach is deceptive towards readers. Unless he blatantly indicates that he has artificially restricted his range of reading, his reviews present a deceptive perspective on the range of works available. That approach also denigrates the reader’s ability to seek out new authors.

    I fully support efforts to be more inclusive in the genre. His approach crosses a line that is better left uncrossed, IMHO.

    Regards,
    Dann

    Surely the starting point here is that no single reviewer can review everything or present a comprehensive perspective as the genre is so big. If he chooses to focus on one segment of the field as he feels that those works are being overlooked by other reviewers, that’s surely positive as it broadens the range of reviews available?

    I wouldn’t seek out his reviews personally, knowing this, as I’m not that motivated by diversity concerns, but I don’t see how this approach is deceptive.

    Some reviewers ‘artificially restrict’ their reading to those books that are given to them as review copies – that to me is much more of an issue.

  20. By white knighting the issue, he also denies those authors the agency to learn and grow in their craft so that they continually improve their product.

    This is particularly misplaced concern. Surely reviews and exposure will drive authors to grow their craft?

  21. No reviewer is obliged to read and review anything that comes his way. Everybody limits their reading in some way. Like everybody else, Sunil Patel has the right to decide what he reads and reviews.

    Besides, maybe he has simply found that he is far more likely to enjoy books written by people other than straight white men. Should he be forced to read books he doesn’t care for? I don’t read a whole lot of books by straight white men either and most of those are by authors whose work I know I’ll enjoy or who come highly recommended.

    Also, as rob_matic said, a lot of reviewers limit their reading to review copies they receive, which is a lot more problematic, especially since review copies are more numerous for authors who are already successful or who are being pushed by the publishers.

  22. @Dann

    By white knighting the issue, he also denies those authors the agency to learn and grow in their craft so that they continually improve their product.

    Now this is downright silly. One reviewer has the power to do all that? It’s not like he’s Pauline Kael.

    His approach is deceptive towards readers. Unless he blatantly indicates that he has artificially restricted his range of reading, his reviews present a deceptive perspective on the range of works available. That approach also denigrates the reader’s ability to seek out new authors.

    He plainly states (or stated–he’s resigned from Mothership Zeta) he reviews only white authors. So? I might review only women authors, or only six-legged alien authors from Venus. Anybody with any sense knows there are a lot more books out there than the ones I’m talking about.

    You’re twisting yourself in knots to say this is a bad thing. It isn’t.

  23. Dann: By white knighting the issue, he also denies those authors the agency to learn and grow in their craft so that they continually improve their product.

    Really? And are reviewers who review only books by white male authors also “denying those authors the agency to learn and grow in their craft so that they continually improve their product”?

    What bollocks. Getting a review is never a signal to a writer to stop learning, growing, and improving their product — or if the writer takes it as one, then they should probably not be writing in the first place.

    #AllWritersMatter   🙄

  24. @Dann – His approach dismisses the ability of those non-SWM authors to write work that can compete with the work of SWM authors.

    Er. The only way I can make that sentence make any sense at all is to pretend that SWM writers are the gold standard by which every other writer is judged. Okay, I tried and, yes, that level of pretense made my head hurt.

    Straight white males, writing for publication or not, are the minority in the world. That makes it unlikely that they are a necessary part of the mix, even if the goal is to survey only quality work. If one reviewer decides to leave them out, that still leaves a lot of work written by those who represent the majority of the world’s (or even just the US’s) population.

    Ergo, this is based on a fallacy, that the standard for quality would suffer if you left out straight, white, male authors:

    By white knighting the issue, he also denies those authors the agency to learn and grow in their craft so that they continually improve their product.

  25. Not sure why so much energy is being expended trying to stand Dann’s arguments on their head — of course a reviewer can pick his/her own subjects (unless they’re working for an editor who assigned the subjects, in which case the editor still enjoys that prerogative).

    But if somebody is reviewing SF/F published in English, like Sunil Patel, then white men and women are probably the majority.

    And I seem to land somewhere between Dann and JJ, because my impression is that very few writers find reviews of their work a source of education. Let’s not forget, most reviews are a dialog between the critic and the audience, and they don’t develop a lot of fine points of craftsmanship.

  26. Mike Glyer: my impression is that very few writers find reviews of their work a source of education. Let’s not forget, most reviews are a dialog between the critic and the audience, and they don’t develop a lot of fine points of craftsmanship.

    Which is exactly why I say that getting a review is never a signal to the writer that they can stop developing their craft and trying to improve their product.

    That idea just makes no sense to me. “Woo-hoo! Someone wrote a review of my work! That means that I’m a perfect writer, and I don’t need to make any more efforts to attain a higher level of writing!”

  27. @Mike Glyer – Not sure why so much energy is being expended trying to stand Dann’s arguments on their head…

    Because someone is wrong on the internet?

    And:

    But if somebody is reviewing SF/F published in English, like Sunil Patel, then white men and women are probably the majority.

    But the omission Dann was concerned with was that of straight white men, who are, regardless of the language in which they’re published, in the minority.

  28. Cheryl S.: But the omission Dann was concerned with was that of straight white men, who are, regardless of the language in which they’re published, in the minority.

    And you base that statement on what? I’m still going by the kind of statistical studies I’ve been reading for the past eight years, for example — Women in speculative fiction on the Wikipedia.

  29. I don’t think Cheryl S. meant that SWM are a minority in publishing, just a minority in planetary population.

    True proportionality would have 50% of published authors be female, 60% of them Asian, etc.

  30. lurkertype: I don’t think Cheryl S. meant that SWM are a minority in publishing, just a minority in planetary population.

    So I assume. And you may recall I pointed out Patel is reviewing English-language works. It doesn’t make sense to bring the planetary population into the discussion.

    And in response to your thought, the studies from places like Broad Universe find that women and PoC are underrepresented among published writers as measured against their percentage of the population.

  31. @Mike Glyer – And you base that statement on what? I’m still going by the kind of statistical studies I’ve been reading for the past eight years, for example — Women in speculative fiction on the Wikipedia.

    Okay, although I was speaking about all genre writers, let’s confine it to English language publishing alone. First, the numbers in the Wikipedia article are not definitive. There is a statement that publishing statistics “indicate that men still outnumber women about two to one among English-language speculative fiction writers aiming for professional publication, but that the percentages vary considerably by genre.” There is no citation for that assertion.

    The subsequent table is from Tor UK, dividing their submissions from January to June, 2013, between men and women, broken down by sub-genre. That division is 37% female, 63% male on the Wikipedia table, 32% female, 68% male from the source article (both have the same percentages by sub-genre but have come up with different totals and I only do math on Tuesdays).

    For the sake of argument, even if we split the difference, ignore that the only numbers available in that article are from the UK and represent novel submissions only, you still need to subtract non-straight and non-white from those totals. I do get that published sexual minorities and PoC do not currently represent the same percentages as their presence in the population, any more than women do, but they are not an insignificant number. So, subtract them from your 63-68%. That majority is looking pretty slim, don’t you think? Maybe it vanishes if we include all SFF written in English, including shorter and related work, and update the statistics to reflect 2016 numbers.

    And all of that is tangential to my actual point to Dann, which is that omitting straight white men from review consideration is not somehow lowering the standard by which writing might be judged.

  32. Most of the statistics on English language books ignore India which unfortunately doesn’t export the large number of books written in English for their bilingual (tri- very multi-lingual) English among other speaking/reading population.

    I read very few books by SWM. This is partly due to “tired of getting punched in the stomach” by harmful tropes but it’s also a choice to read more diversely. I figure for the first 45+ years of my life most of the books I read were by SWM unless it was romance where it was SWW. If the last 45 years of my life are spent reading books by mostly non-SWM/SWW I might come closer to real life representation by the time I die. Reading has gotten adventuresome again and less unexpectedly painful as I began reading less straight white authors.

  33. @Tasha Turner, good point about India. I also agree with you about the stomach punching potential.

    Faced with two 600 page novels, one by a man and one by a woman, I will invariably choose the one by a woman. I might dislike both of them, but I’m far less likely to be irritated beyond bearing by the book written by a woman, so I’m more willing to make that investment. The potential for irritation decreases if the author is not straight. For me, there isn’t such a clear through line for writers of color and those from other countries but I do try to read widely, although I’m not as disciplined about it as you seem to be.

  34. @Cheryl S

    I was surprised last year when I looked over my Goodreads books read in 2015 how few were SWM. This year I’m realizing how many rapes/non-consensual sex tropes are in UF/PNR books by SWW. I’ve begun actively seeking out UF/PNR by non-whites and LGBTI which can take some work as not all authors declare race, gender, or sexual preference or even author pictures for obvious reasons. Doing the research was interesting and it’s gotten me to follow a lot more black, First Nation/indigenous, other non-white, LGBTI editors and authors around the world. This in turn is teaching me to listen more and talk less (hard but good) and learn lots hopefully changing my thinking and behavior as well as finding more interesting authors and books to TBR. 😉

  35. @Cheryl

    Faced with two 600 page novels, one by a man and one by a woman, I will invariably choose the one by a woman. I might dislike both of them, but I’m far less likely to be irritated beyond bearing by the book written by a woman, so I’m more willing to make that investment. The potential for irritation decreases if the author is not straight. For me, there isn’t such a clear through line for writers of color and those from other countries but I do try to read widely, although I’m not as disciplined about it as you seem to be.

    Same here.

    Like Tasha, I am sometimes bothered by problematic tropes (rape or dubcon, problematic gender roles, slut shaming, surrogate pregnancy plots etc…) in books by straight white women. I’ve learned to avoid certain authors and subgenres because of this.

  36. My Goodreads numbers for this year show I’m buying more non-white and LGBTI authors but this year’s reading hasn’t transitioned as much as I thought. Out of 191 items read 28 are non-white/LGBTI, 11 are SWM, the rest are SWW to the best of my knowledge. I think it was ~3 months ago when I started a concerted effort to seek out non-white UF/PNR.

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