After several authors withdrew their stories today from the New Demons anthology due to the involvement of co-editor Patrick R. McDonough, another co-editor, Joe R. Lansdale, said the anthology is “done”.
A Kickstarter to fund the New Demons anthology was launched two days ago and promptly raised almost five times the amount of its target goal. The anthology was to be co-edited by Joe R. Lansdale, Patrick R. McDonough and Keith Lansdale, and feature stories from the following authors:
Subtweeting in social media about McDonough began when pre-launch publicity about the Kickstarter appeared. Ginger Nuts of Horror review website editor Jim McLeod then wrote explicitly on March 18:
Here are posts from several writers who today dropped out of the anthology.
Another is Chuck Wendig, who briefly stated in “Three More things Makes A Post” at Terribleminds:
….[T]he anthology I announced being a part of earlier, New Demons, I sadly am pulling out of at present. I’ll let you know if that changes.
Co-editor Joe Lansdale then responded:
And Patrick R. McDonough has posted a response and denial of wrongdoing:
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Gabino Iglesias made a follow-up post because some people were confused about one sentence in his original post:
https://x.com/Gabino_Iglesias/status/1770880663714976122?s=20
Mary SanGiovanni posted a statement on her blog:
https://msgwriterslife.wordpress.com/2024/03/21/mamas-had-enough/
I really really wish writing and publishing communities had something more than the whisper network to rely on. But I guess a database of “bad apples” would be fraught with legal issues.
Anne Marble: Yes — I’ve now added Iglesias’ follow-up to the clips.
Clickity
Anne Marble says I really really wish writing and publishing communities had something more than the whisper network to rely on. But I guess a database of “bad apples” would be fraught with legal issues.
To quote Gibbs of NCIS, You think?
The folk music industry badly needed this forty years back to keep track of Bad Actors in terms of venues and festival promoters that lets us say were less than scrupulous in paying what they owed but when we started to put it together, we got warned that we be on thin ice as any false information there could get ud in very deep shit.
I’m still owed several thousand dollars from back then I’ll never see from venues that went out of business before paying me even though I payed the artists. Oh well…
Seems New Demons Kickstarter really has been pulled down now.
So it has — thanks for the head’s up.
That ALL CAPS rant from the accused sure makes him seem innocent, doesn’t it? He must be a very stable genius.
I hope a future anthology can be put together with the ethical writers.
@Anne: The whisper network needs to encompass more people, is all. One of the Very Badly Behaved Men, I knew about a couple of years before it all came out, simply by waiting to go out to dinner at a con with a party which included a mutual female SMOF friend. A male SMOF acquaintance of all of the above had no idea, and is usually up on all the gossip. I patted him on the shoulder and said “Because you’re a guy.” He grokked.
@Lurkertype
His Shift key really got stuck there…
I have seen men in various fandoms say that they can’t believe the rumors about so-and-so because “He was always polite with me.” Someday, I’m going to slip and say, “Yes, because you’re a big name, and because you have a penis.” You’d think they would grok by now.
@Anne: Do it!!! It’s wonderfully freeing. Luckily, my acquaintance is not a toxic man, so me gently saying that was enough.
Try doing it the way I did, and don’t use the word “penis”, because that makes most men stop thinking.
@Lurkertype, I used the term “missing stair” to my husband a few months ago about another Fannish Personality and he gave me a blank look. He didn’t know the term, although he grokked it once I’d explained it to him, and he absolutely understood why he wasn’t connected to the whisper network (him being white and having a penis and all….)
Oddly, it never occurred to me that my husband DIDN’T know the term or context of “missing stair” since I’ve been female in fandom for forty-five years and it was the water I swam in…
I don’t know the term missing stair.
Linda Robinett: I don’t know the term missing stair.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missing_stair
Joe Lansdale’s response is poor. Saying “we’ve been put in a position … we can’t move forward there’s just too much Twitter Twitter” is self-pity, not self-accountability. You put yourself in a position by working with a co-editor who, judging by the reactions, has a reputation that caught up with him. Kickstarter is funded through audience goodwill and you lost it.
Lansdale’s responses were definitely sketch, including one he deleted that was essentially saying people were picking on his buddy. He seemed mad he had to give up his shiny toy, angry people were mean to his friend, and furious at the people who spoke up. That’s his real face as far as I’m concerned.
It’s often “because you’re a guy,” but sometimes it’s people jumping from “he’s my friend, and I don’t want to stop hanging out with him, or admit my judgement is flawed” to grasping at an unstated assertion that Bad People are Bad to everyone, all the time. With an additional assumption that bad actors are caught and punished the first time. The fact that someone didn’t harass me, or harass anyone while I was looking, doesn’t mean much.
“He didn’t steal my car” doesn’t mean someone isn’t a thief, and almost nobody would argue the extreme “he didn’t try to murder me, so he’s not a killer.” But it’s an awfully common “defense” against charges of sexual harassment, and also for charges of drunk driving, fraud, and petty theft.
One of the uses of DNA collection has been the discovery that that well-spoken fellow who must have had a misunderstanding after his recent date has the same DNA as the guy who has been attacking strangers in alleys.
I don’t hate men, but after reading the linked article I wonder if I should reconsider my position.
This is common knowledge in horror fiction circles, but apparently not in sci-fi fandom, but Joe’s wife has advanced Alzheimers. He’s been dealing with that for the last year or so. So I’m not surprised his text-to-speech reply was curt.
@Nancy
That’s horrible, and my heart goes out to him. I imagine this is another reason he was looking forward to what had potential to be a great anthology. He wasn’t kind, though, to anyone other than the person accused, at least not publicly.
I love horror novels, but I don’t trust the community because a variation of this whole cycle keeps happening, including the part where people who come forward are disbelieved and people rally around the accused. I don’t see a real desire to make lasting changes so there will always be the predators, the bullies, and the bitter dinosaurs.
Again, my heart goes out to Joe Lansdale and I wish him all that he needs to not only care for his wife but for himself, but I have no intentions to read him.
Most posts like this I see also have links to the allegations of wrongdoing; this one doesn’t. Does anyone know where I could find a discussion of PMD’s behavior? I’m not asking out of any doubt (or, for that matter, any belief – how can I have either with no specific claims to assess), but because I prefer to stay updated on this kind of thing so I can warn other people (in the least whisper-like way I can manage).
But here so little is said I don’t even know what I’d be warning people about except from PMD’s own denials.