This post was written by me and Sherwood.
The unnamed agency in our previous post has chosen to present their perception of the exchange. We confirm that it was the agency we referred to. We stand by every word we wrote in our original article.
We did not wish to name them, because we preferred to focus on the larger issues. We did not spread rumors about them, and we don't know who did.
This is why we went public: After the initial exchange a month ago, we spoke in private to a number of other writers, without mentioning the name of the agent or agency. There was an overwhelming response of "Me too!" Many other writers had been asked by agents and editors to alter or remove the minority identity of their characters, sometimes as a condition of representation or sale. Sometimes those identities had been altered by editors without the writers' knowledge or permission.
That response, and posts like Malinda Lo's recent statistics make it clear that the problem is much larger than a couple of writers and one specific agency.
We urge you all to continue focusing on the bigger picture.
Discussion is welcome but abuse and name-calling is not. Please do your best to be civil.
ETA: Since several people asked: I do have an agent for my nonfiction, Brian DeFiore. He's great. The work Sherwood and I do together is very different from what we both do solo, and we wanted an agent to represent us as a team.
The unnamed agency in our previous post has chosen to present their perception of the exchange. We confirm that it was the agency we referred to. We stand by every word we wrote in our original article.
We did not wish to name them, because we preferred to focus on the larger issues. We did not spread rumors about them, and we don't know who did.
This is why we went public: After the initial exchange a month ago, we spoke in private to a number of other writers, without mentioning the name of the agent or agency. There was an overwhelming response of "Me too!" Many other writers had been asked by agents and editors to alter or remove the minority identity of their characters, sometimes as a condition of representation or sale. Sometimes those identities had been altered by editors without the writers' knowledge or permission.
That response, and posts like Malinda Lo's recent statistics make it clear that the problem is much larger than a couple of writers and one specific agency.
We urge you all to continue focusing on the bigger picture.
Discussion is welcome but abuse and name-calling is not. Please do your best to be civil.
ETA: Since several people asked: I do have an agent for my nonfiction, Brian DeFiore. He's great. The work Sherwood and I do together is very different from what we both do solo, and we wanted an agent to represent us as a team.
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"But even worse, by basing their entire article on untruths, these authors have exploited the topic. "
God forbid that you raise a topic which you made completely anonymous and not, in fact, about them in particular. That's exploitation!
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Also really tired of the red herring about whether the agent in question was "personally homophobic" or not. And all the other red herrings and straw men.
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I do wonder/worry how the name got out. (Not blaming you, just wondering who leaked.)
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It's possible that the agency defended itself vigorously behind closed doors, and it got out that way.
It's also possible that readers figured it out all by themselves. We mentioned that they were respectable and repped a bestselling YA dystopia. We didn't think that was that identifiable, but it may have been enough for people to put the pieces together.
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I can see there being different memories of the meeting; that would frankly go with "I'm not homophobic, I'm a good person, my objections were entirely professional."
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Homophobia fucking sucks. I'm sad to see that they couldn't see what happened and learn from it.
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It does sound, though, as if the grapevine mutated the message before it reached them.
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I wish people would read the article we actually wrote before jumping to conclusions about what we said.
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Leaving aside the Rashomon nature of the conversation -- and I do believe you -- this genuinely looks like a visceral reaction of "I'm not a bad person! You're a bad person for calling me a bad person!" and in the process ignoring the repeated message, both in your post and in the comments, that this is happening all over the industry.
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I wonder if part of it is that when they thought it was someone else, it was very comfortable to vilify the "bad agency" rather than looking at the "this is systemic" part of the message. And they'd gone so far down that path in their own heads that when they realized that the post could actually apply to them, they freaked out about all the things they'd said to themselves about...themselves (none of which were things Rachel and Sherwood said in their original post).
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I keep trying to come up with an explanation of "So are they all, all reasonable men", but I need to stop trying. I can understand the emotional reaction without condoning it or believing their version of the facts.
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I really do think the bit about self-promotion was uncalled for. Yes, frankly you did get me interested in reading a book with an Asian gay character(Asians in Scifi/Fantasy don't get enough love), but I'm also extremely grateful for the linkage of YA LGBTQ and POC book list in your original post. If anything, you're using this to promote diverse fiction in general.
Also, in reading many of the comments all over the place, I am reconsidering some of the decisions I have made with my webcomic. Several characters' sexualities aren't mentioned because I don't want it to be viewed solely as a BL, since it's not a romance. But now I do realize it's important for a character's self-identity to be prominent in non-romance genres as well.
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