Erin Cairns, a South African-born white woman who moved to the U.S. with her parents when she was young, has published a 78-page memo charging Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki with unethical practices, among them submitting her work under his name to a “Black voices magazine”.
I am reporting Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki for unethical practices. He submitted a story entirely written by me into a Black voices magazine without my name on the byline. He lied about who he knew and how well he knew them. He obfuscated information about publications and editors and manipulated me to such an extent that I still struggle to trust myself and others.
Cairns has had work appear in Writers of the Future Vol. 34, the Silent Screams anthology, and The Dark Magazine.
Her memo about Ekpeki begins with a nine-page summary, and is supported by 69 pages of screencaps of text messages. It is available to download from Google Drive: ODE_Ethics Report_Compressed.pdf. Cairns has redacted the names of the anthology projects, and other professionals and sources.
The PDF shows her discussions with Ekpeki as she edited several of his stories and co-authored another, all of which was work done without credit and with his initially telling her he was just looking for a critique.
…We have never met or spoken outside of emails or twitter DMs. My first interaction with Ekpeki was in late 2018 when I posted on twitter that I had won a writing award. We interacted on twitter for a while, exchanging stories for critique which I had done many times before. But this gradually shifted into me editing stories, which at the time I did not know was for his co-edited anthology: [Anthology D]. When he told me a story I’d worked on was going to be in the anthology, I questioned him about what I’d been doing. He told me that for my help and work, my name would be in the acknowledgments of the book.
When the book was released, I bought a copy, and my name was nowhere to be found….
… None of the work I did for Ekpeki has ever been publicly acknowledged. The extent has been that he included my name in a ‘writer’s boost’ once or twice (a tweet with a list of writers usernames). This was fine-ish. It was a lot of work, it was hard work, and sometimes it was work I did not believe in, but there were no contracts. I knew I should say no when it became clear I wasn’t going to get credit, but I didn’t. I tried once, but he sent me a story anyway, and I did it. By that point it felt like a firmer ‘no’ was going to cost me a connection in the writing world I had already poured a ton of time and work into.
Much later, in 2021 he said: “I really wish you hadn’t gone off the radar around when I was doing [Anthology D],” as a way to say he would have published my work in that anthology. But I was on the radar, editing a story for [Anthology D]. I did not submit to the call (though I had been sent the submissions link by a friend, and did not know I was at that time editing a story in said anthology) because the submissions guidelines said “white South Africans need not apply,” and I am a white South African.
He hadn’t been transparent with me about his involvement with [Anthology D] when it was being put together, even while I was editing for it….
Ekpeki, telling her there was by now more demand for his work than he could satisfy, asked if Cairns was interested in co-authoring, which in this case would mean jointly revising a story she had already drafted: “[He] would change the story to reflect a more own-voice context, and give it more Nigerian spiritualism and culture, but distance it from the real world inspiration I’d had for the story (a Makonde mask I’d seen in the Dallas Museum of Art).”
But when [Editor S] solicited the story they had co-authored for [Market 2], a “Black voices magazine”, Cairns disagreed with Ekpeki about the ethics of allowing that to happen, and following some tense correspondence (reproduced in the report) she got Ekpeki to withdraw the story.
On the other hand, Cairns makes clear that it was her choice not to receive compensation for any work she did:
…I would like to note that as time went on, he started to offer payment, especially as he started to rise in popularity, but I always refused…. Money never exchanged hands. Whenever he offered it, it was always far past the time I’d done the work and that always felt odd to me. So I insisted he also worked hard on the stories he sent me and declined the sudden offers of payment again and again….
Cairns’ report prompted several people to comment publicly about issues involving Ekpeki that until now were known to a limited number.
Cairns posted the link to her report on Bluesky here, where it has received comments from several dozen writers. R.S.A. Garcia said there that Ekpeki’s behavior has already resulted in his being removed from two shared writer spaces:
L. D. Lewis said specifically that Ekpeki was removed from the FIYAHCON 2022 project. And gave added insights about that situation in a thread that starts here.
Elsewhere, some are now distancing their projects and themselves from Ekpeki.
Michael Bailey has announced that Ekpeki is no longer his co-editor on the You, Human anthology.
Two authors have announced they are leaving one of Ekpeki’s projects:
Gautam Bhatia has written a thoughtful interpretation of the meaning of the popular and financial support Ekpeki has received up til now within the overall power dynamics of the sff field. The thread starts here. Some excerpts follow below. (OED = Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki.)
Jason Sanford, who has pitched in again and again to help Ekpeki solve problems with his Amazon royalties and other international payment tangles, told File 770: “I’m pissed and gutted to learn all this. I’m also worried about how these revelations might close off opportunities for new writers from around the world who are trying to break into the SF/F genre.”
And Chris Barkley, who worked on a fundraiser to bring Ekpeki to Glasgow 2024, commented:
The last thirty six hours have been quite an eye opener for myself and my partner Juli. We have been supporters of Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki for the past few years and we were both shocked and deeply saddened at the recent allegations that have been against him over this past weekend.
We have heard from friends and acquaintances who, in some instances, have confirmed the allegations of ethical misbehavior. They involve malfeasance of funds that were raised or given to him, personal transgressions against individuals at conventions, questionable submissions to magazines and anthologies and theft of literary property that did not originate directly from him.
In light of these revelations, we are both angered, shocked and most of all disappointed that he took advantage of the goodwill of others to further his own writing career and social status at the expense of the people who earnestly tried to help him.
File 770 contacted Ekpeki for his comment on the Cairns report. He is preparing a response which will be reported in a follow-up post.
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This is both sad and disturbing. People finding themselves used in this way is a horrible experience.
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Ekpeki is on the SFWA board, too, as I recall. Another crisis for SFWA…
Andrew (not Werdna): He’s a Director At Large.
https://www.sfwa.org/2024/06/21/results-of-the-2024-sfwa-officer-elections/
@Michael: Thank you
Michael, what’s a Director at Large?
Cat: The SFWA Board of Directors consists of as many as 9 persons — four officers (President, the Vice President, the Secretary and the Chief Financial Officer) with specific responsibilities, and five Directors-At-Large that are “responsible for facilitating communications and representing concerns of the membership to the Board”.
I’ve taken a bit of time to go over the many complaints about Oghenechovre D. Ekepeki that are only now coming out in the face of the ethics complaint from the very brave Erin Cairns.
Some of you may remember the attacks Mr. Ekpeki and Patrick Tomlinson leveled at me when I questioned the hyperbolic language they’d used in describing online trolls. This was after Mr. Ekpeki and I had interacted amicably through DMs, after I contacted the State Department and a famous Nigerian journalist concerning his 2022 visa denial, after we met at Chicon, and after I offered my help in his establishing an African literary agency. And yet, not only did he level the most horrible epithets, but he impugned my very legitimacy in the industry.
For my questioning, Mr. Ekpeki felt I deserved such invectives as “terrible, horrible wicked person” and “fucking animal”. For this, he engaged in attempts to get me fired and destroy my professional standing as a literary agent. For this, many in the community labeled me racist and professionally unfit.
These actions, although hurtful to me, may have had the most chilling effects on the very communities Mr. Ekpeki claimed to lift up, historically disenfranchised and marginalized authors.
As a literary agency with a Black founder and owner, —perhaps the only such agency— and one centering historically marginalized voices, the damage done to these communities by attempting to discredit us is incalculable. The chilling effect such accusations could have had on authors who might otherwise have submitted to us.
While I am obviously appalled and disgusted by Mr. Ekpeki’s behaviors coming to light, I am not in the least surprised, as I’ve been keeping an eye out for just such an event. And I do call our community to task for the tokenizing of Mr. Ekpeki, to the detriment of other, more qualified African writers. The SFFH publishing community, including myself, chose to support, legitimize, and platform a fraud without carefully scrutinizing his credentials, and we did it in large part because of where he was from. That’s simply unjust and wrong, and we must do better!
I have posted a expanded statement on BlueSky regarding this situation which is also excerpted on Jason Sanford’s Patreon site as well:
https://bsky.app/profile/cmzhang42.bsky.social/post/3l7jdgsxh3h2l
Here is Jason’s Report on his Pateron link:
https://www.patreon.com/posts/114826326?fbclid=IwY2xjawGLkrVleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHQqNkMolAWga8SE3E2AYKwjy0WJxN8W-Aqd-1YRyt4J8f7gVxKcvki7eRw_aem_6g3Qb4qFnsInlOC6y22DQw
Just for what it’s worth, and I know I’m blinded by anger and frustration over this, but there are multiple reports of impersonator-trolls running around attempting to use Ekpeki’s identity to stir up trouble.
I’ve spotted some impersonator social media accounts (usernames with an extra dash in them, that kind of thing) being screenshotted as if they’re him, and seen screenshots of faked e-mails using website contact forms.
Just keep in mind that this is going on and the waters are being muddied by it.
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It’s bad enough without trolls stirring up even worse for the purposes, presumably, of sowing chaos and discord.
@Peace
More likely a targeted racist attack – see a weakness, pile in and try to get a hate mob going. They do the same with trans women online
He has now been removed from the SFWA Board, for anyone wondering about that: https://www.sfwa.org/2024/10/28/sfwa-board-statement-on-removal-of-a-director-at-large/
I’ve only been following this from a remove, but I think the relatively quick and unanimous reaction to this I’ve seen fram fandom is another example of the way structural racism functions. When bad, unethical, or unlawful behaviour is exposed, people from disadvantaged groups will have far fewer defenders, and the reaction against them is likely to be swifter and harsher.
For clarity: I have absolutely no reason to disbelieve the reports and testimony. For my eyes they are highly credible. I do think the pattern of disadvantaged people getting thrown under the bus much quicker and easily compared to white men is something to look out for still.
Treating anyone because they are a member of a certain nationality, ethnicity or whatever, as being perfect which is what is happening here makes them less than human. It isn’t racist of individuals like Erin to say of Oghenechovwe that he treated her badly, nor for other individuals to support her.
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I would push back on that a bit. While I certainly am not privy to anywhere near all the details in either case, it seems to me that Neil Gaiman’s downfall was pretty darn quick as well, with TV series in progress being effectively canceled, etc. And I think it’s fair to say one would have difficulty finding a writer in a more privileged position than Mr. Gaiman, at least until quite recently.
I think one can make a legitimate case that the age of social media may enable a too-swift call for collective judgment across the board, without needing to bring the specter of racism into the equation. In fact, to bend over backwards to look for reasons to excuse bad behavior because of someone’s ethnicity is placing too much focus on identity and too little focus on character, IMHO.
As always, this is yet another case where we can’t go astray if we simply follow the guidance of the Reverend Doctor (King, that is, not Who) and simply judge each individual human person by the content of their character.