If you are not already aware of the Requires Hate situation, there is a full report here. Briefly, a person who writes under the pen name of Benjanun Sriduangkaew was revealed to be the notorious harasser Winterfox/Requires Hate/Lesifoere/many other aliases.
For over ten years, Requires Hate made death threats and rape threats, and stalked and harassed many people, including myself. To date, she has not responded to my public request for her to promise to leave me alone.
She engaged in a systematic campaign to destroy the careers of writers whom she apparently saw as her competition, primarily women writers and writers of color, by abusing and intimidating anyone who reviewed their books, harassing and threatening the writers themselves, attempting to get the writers professionally ostracized, and engaging in blackmail. (The blackmail link goes to an anonymous report; however, I have personal knowledge of the blackmail and vouch for it.)
I am posting to state that I have reported her to the police. I previously didn't say so publicly because I didn't want to give her the pleasure of knowing that she succeeded in making me fear for my life. However, I believe that the chances of her retaliating violently against me or others, whether in person or by hiring someone, are lessened if she knows that the police are aware of the situation. If any harm comes to me, a detailed report is on file documenting that I have a longtime stalker with a history of threatening death and violent attacks, including acid-throwing.
Supporters of Requires Hate often try to garner support for her and suppress discussion of her abuse by saying that speaking out against her is inherently racist because she's a woman of color, and that to support women writers of color, one must support Requires Hate. This erases the many other women of color in the field - a number of whom have been abused by her. Despite her efforts to suppress other female writers of color, she is hardly the only one.
Marginalized people are often unfairly persecuted and falsely accused. It's reasonable to be suspicious when you first hear claims that a woman of color is abusive. But marginalized people are people, and some people are abusive. Some marginalized people are abusive. Supporting abusers is not justice.
If you would like to do something positive, I suggest that you make an effort to read and review the works of writers with marginalized identities, and to promote the writers themselves whenever possible, such as by considering them as convention guests, lecturers, columnists, and so forth. There are very genuine obstacles in their paths that non-marginalized writers don't face, and they could use your support. Also, I very much doubt that Requires Hate will revive her campaign of harassing reviewers, so it should now be safe to review again.
If you're not sure where to start, here is a non-exhaustive list of sff/mythic fiction writers with marginalized identities of various kinds. The majority are women writers of color. Writers who were targeted by Requires Hate are starred. Please consider purchasing and/or reviewing at least one book or story by one of these writers, or by another writer of your choice.
*Saladin Ahmed
*Athena Andreadis
Samhita Arni
Samit Basu
Joseph Bruchac
Joyce Chng/J. Damask
Zen Cho
Aliette de Bodard
Tananarive Due
Zetta Elliott
Andrea Hairston
Nalo Hopkinson
S. L. Huang
*N. K. Jemisin
Alaya Dawn Johnson
*Caitlin Kiernan
Yoon Ha Lee
Malinda Lo
*Rochita Loenen-Ruiz
*Karen Lord
Lyda Morehouse/Tate Halloway
Shweta Narayan
Ty Nolan
Nnedi Okorafor
*Cindy Pon
Michelle Sagara/Michelle West
Sofia Samatar
Cynthia Leitich Smith
*Kari Sperring
*Tricia Sullivan
Judith Tarr
Shveta Thakrar
*Liz Williams
If you want to talk about Requires Hate, feel free to email or PM me. Please do not discuss her in comments. Trolling and off-topic comments will be deleted.
I am enabling comments ONLY for the discussion or recommendation of works by marginalized writers other than her, and for topics related to that. (My book reviews are tagged by author: surname.) Feel free to state a subgenre or tropes that you like, and maybe I or other commenters can rec something for you.
Please note that you don't necessarily know exactly how people identify, so stating the nature of a writer's minority identity is not necessary. Let's not do any identity-policing or arguing over whether any given identity is sufficiently marginalized to be called that. Definitions differ, so we can all decide that question for ourselves.
For over ten years, Requires Hate made death threats and rape threats, and stalked and harassed many people, including myself. To date, she has not responded to my public request for her to promise to leave me alone.
She engaged in a systematic campaign to destroy the careers of writers whom she apparently saw as her competition, primarily women writers and writers of color, by abusing and intimidating anyone who reviewed their books, harassing and threatening the writers themselves, attempting to get the writers professionally ostracized, and engaging in blackmail. (The blackmail link goes to an anonymous report; however, I have personal knowledge of the blackmail and vouch for it.)
I am posting to state that I have reported her to the police. I previously didn't say so publicly because I didn't want to give her the pleasure of knowing that she succeeded in making me fear for my life. However, I believe that the chances of her retaliating violently against me or others, whether in person or by hiring someone, are lessened if she knows that the police are aware of the situation. If any harm comes to me, a detailed report is on file documenting that I have a longtime stalker with a history of threatening death and violent attacks, including acid-throwing.
Supporters of Requires Hate often try to garner support for her and suppress discussion of her abuse by saying that speaking out against her is inherently racist because she's a woman of color, and that to support women writers of color, one must support Requires Hate. This erases the many other women of color in the field - a number of whom have been abused by her. Despite her efforts to suppress other female writers of color, she is hardly the only one.
Marginalized people are often unfairly persecuted and falsely accused. It's reasonable to be suspicious when you first hear claims that a woman of color is abusive. But marginalized people are people, and some people are abusive. Some marginalized people are abusive. Supporting abusers is not justice.
If you would like to do something positive, I suggest that you make an effort to read and review the works of writers with marginalized identities, and to promote the writers themselves whenever possible, such as by considering them as convention guests, lecturers, columnists, and so forth. There are very genuine obstacles in their paths that non-marginalized writers don't face, and they could use your support. Also, I very much doubt that Requires Hate will revive her campaign of harassing reviewers, so it should now be safe to review again.
If you're not sure where to start, here is a non-exhaustive list of sff/mythic fiction writers with marginalized identities of various kinds. The majority are women writers of color. Writers who were targeted by Requires Hate are starred. Please consider purchasing and/or reviewing at least one book or story by one of these writers, or by another writer of your choice.
*Saladin Ahmed
*Athena Andreadis
Samhita Arni
Samit Basu
Joseph Bruchac
Joyce Chng/J. Damask
Zen Cho
Aliette de Bodard
Tananarive Due
Zetta Elliott
Andrea Hairston
Nalo Hopkinson
S. L. Huang
*N. K. Jemisin
Alaya Dawn Johnson
*Caitlin Kiernan
Yoon Ha Lee
Malinda Lo
*Rochita Loenen-Ruiz
*Karen Lord
Lyda Morehouse/Tate Halloway
Shweta Narayan
Ty Nolan
Nnedi Okorafor
*Cindy Pon
Michelle Sagara/Michelle West
Sofia Samatar
Cynthia Leitich Smith
*Kari Sperring
*Tricia Sullivan
Judith Tarr
Shveta Thakrar
*Liz Williams
If you want to talk about Requires Hate, feel free to email or PM me. Please do not discuss her in comments. Trolling and off-topic comments will be deleted.
I am enabling comments ONLY for the discussion or recommendation of works by marginalized writers other than her, and for topics related to that. (My book reviews are tagged by author: surname.) Feel free to state a subgenre or tropes that you like, and maybe I or other commenters can rec something for you.
Please note that you don't necessarily know exactly how people identify, so stating the nature of a writer's minority identity is not necessary. Let's not do any identity-policing or arguing over whether any given identity is sufficiently marginalized to be called that. Definitions differ, so we can all decide that question for ourselves.
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I'm on my third Karen Lord book right now, as well--Redemption in Indigo was lovely (got it off a 50 Books POC rec), The Best of All Possible Worlds was an entirely different book and pretty good, and I'm really looking forward to its sequel The Galaxy Game, which picks up with some side characters from the first book whom I'd been quite interested in the first time around.
The only Nalo Hopkinson I've read to date was Sister Mine, which was equal parts familiar setting (Canada) and unfamiliar mythology (African/Caribbean) and had a narrator I came to love. Whose sister is dating Jimi Hendrix's guitar. (It makes sense in the book.) I realized while reading it that I'm more into the magic-as-technology kind of fantasy (like Diane Duane's Young Wizards or Ben Aaronovitch's Rivers of London) rather than the ineffable-mystical-beings sort, but I ended up liking this one even though it was heavier on the latter. It did a great job with the sister/sister relationship, too. (Though, content note for consensual incest between adolescent twin goddesses. Bothered me less than I expected but it is in there.)
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I also really liked Ahmed's "Without Faith, Without Law, Without Joy," which podcastle did up. Creepy and very effective.
Someone sent me this list of SF/F by women of colour, and I'm going to try to read through it this year. It has a fair bit of overlap with yours.
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... I don't know if I am making any sense, but I just noticed she will have a novel published in September and I will definitely wait for it:
"Sorcerer to the Crown is my debut novel, the first of three historical fantasy books set in Regency London, featuring magic, romance and lots of hijinks.
Zacharias Wythe, England’s first African Sorcerer Royal, is contending with attempts to depose him, rumours that he murdered his predecessor, and an alarming decline in England’s magical stocks. But his troubles are multiplied when he encounters runaway orphan Prunella Gentleman, who has just stumbled upon English magic’s greatest discovery in centuries."
... sounds just the thing.
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(Some readers might also be interested in the fact that the protagonist is probably asexual - it's never stated in so many words, probably because I doubt ancient Aztec culture had a word for it, but it's implied in a couple of places)
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For something diversity focussed and already out: Kaleidoscope, edited by Julia Rios and Alisa Krasnostein has a whole bunch of wonderful stories by diverse authors you may not have previously come across. I think “The Truth About Owls” by Amal El-Mohtar is my personal favourite, but there's so much goodness to choose from.
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Anyway, great list. Thanks again!
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I completely agree about women over 50.
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And that N.K. Jemisin wrote perhaps the most searingly memorable story (though there's some competition for that honor) story in the Lightspeed "Women Destroy SF" collection.
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I'll rec some Australians - I love the illustrated books of Shaun Tan, especially The Arrival and The Red Tree, though all his books are great. And I love the non-fiction of Alice Pung, especially in the memoir Unpolished Gem; she's ventured into fiction recently too.
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As far as specific authors go, I'll gladly read anything Sherri L. Smith publishes; her Orleans is a dystopian novel without a single love triangle (!!!), inspired by Smith's experiences related to Hurricane Katrina.
Unfortunately, most of what I read is contemporary or historical, so no one else yet unmentioned here is coming to mind, but I'll come back if thaat changes. ♥
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The Amaterasu Project by Axie Oh, Las Vegas, NV
• YA science fiction/action novel set in Korea about a former gangster who is recruited into the military over a secret prototype weapons project—which turns out to be a genetically modified girl
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It really saddens me to see several authors whose works I thoroughly enjoy on that list with the stars next to them.
And thank you for that list, it gives me dozens more authors to check out and hopefully enjoy. }:).
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See any writers you plan to check out?
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What does the bolding mean?
---L.
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Do you see any writers you'd like to read or rec?
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and i've read s.l. huang's zero-sum game (http://egelantier.livejournal.com/166307.html), and it was an incredibly fun romp with an interesting heroine in the center, and general theme of forging ties.
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I *loved* "Huixin Sees a Ghost," (http://ib-archive.livejournal.com/101016.html) short story by Eve Shi, who is Indonesian. She has a bunch of others linked from her website. (http://lilac-eve.net/?page_id=99) Unfortunately her novels are all in Indonesian.
I also enjoy Yukimi Ogawa, who has been published extensively in Mythic Delirium, and recently also by The Book Smugglers (the novella In Her Head, In Her Eyes (http://thebooksmugglers.com/2014/10/in-her-head-in-her-eyes-by-yukimi-ogawa.html), which I haven't read, but I've liked what I've read in MD).
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I've been eyeing books by some of the others on that list, so on the to-read pile they go!
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