Monteleone Aftermath: Authors Seek Perspective on His Damaging Statements

Brian Keene and Barney Dannelke have added two notable responses to the widespread discussion about the ouster of Thomas Monteleone from the Horror Writers Association.

In a YouTube video aired yesterday, Brian Keene, Mary SanGiovanni, and Christopher Golden, who each have known Monteleone a long time, used their exceptional gifts to analyze and share the deep emotional hurt they’re feeling over the things he said on Facebook and in a recent podcast. (An auto-generated transcript is available at the link,)

Barney Dannelke has also provided insights about the facts and issues in a Facebook post. Here are some excerpts.

…Little did I know that within 48 hours of my mentioning Thomas F. Monteleone in a Breakfast With Barney that Tom would walk out on to the public square, dowse himself with the kerosene of his own bullshit and gleefully and cheerfully set himself on fire….

…In that capacity he WAS a member of the Horror Writers of America (H.W.A.) and in that capacity he can/could nominate people for the HWA Lifetime Achievement Award – and so he nominated Stuart David Schiff. Except he did it in a manner (or perhaps he only proposed to do it, check my work here) that could best be described as a total dick move. Essentially, he drew attention to the fact that Schiff is an old white male, proposing that to dare to do such a thing in this day and age was somehow a revolutionary act.

Turned out, it was an act of pure “fuck around and find out.” He picked up the heavy stick. He walked straight up to the hornet nest that he had been watching for years. Then he hit the nest with the stick as hard as he could (not very) and then he pretended to be shocked that hornets waiting for an idiot with a stick, went and did what hornets were designed to do. Namely, sting the shit out of him.

Then (!) he went on a podcast linked to YouTube and complained in the most racist and misoginystic ways he could think of for OVER TWO HOURS about how stupid hornets were and how they didn’t properly appreciate him and how confusing sexual designations are for hornets these days and how dumb fat black hornets are and how lucky he was that he made enough money that his kids didn’t have to go to school with hornets and how he has gallons of hornet cream and being old and rich and Italian (note the Fedora) he doesn’t feel shit anyways.

I listened to the entire podcast. I have read the entire 38 page transcript. I am sure you will let me know if I am exaggerating any of this.

Running in background for the last 48 hours there have been dozens of comment threads about this. The most damning addition was a Cemetery Dance op-ed piece from Tom where he explains to the rest of us poor suckers that the ONLY reason that Samuel R. Delany had a career in SF was because of his skin color and that the work had no merit whatsoever….

(There is a copy of that issue of Cemetery Dance #21 [1994-Summer] downloadable from the Internet Archive.)

Dannelke does not object to Monteleone being removed from HWA, however, there are things he would have preferred to be said more explicitly, or not altogether omitted from HWA’s announcement. See the rest of his discussion at Facebook.