Note: This column is available free to the public. If you like my writings on genre issues, consider backing my Patreon or subscribing to my Substack. On July 5th, British author David A. Riley announced on his website that his novelette "Ossani the Healer and the Beautiful Homunculus" had been accepted by
As a British writer (with at least 70 rejections from F&SF, including one of my favourite bits of personal feedback from CC Finlay ("by the end, I didn't know what it meant either")) I condemn what the NF stood for. But I also condemn the equally fascist approach of judging a story by anything other than the content of that story (and I can only assume Riley's tale was politically neutral, otherwise the excellent Thomas would have rejected it).
If you go down the route of having to judge both the artist and the art, particularly of past beliefs against current standards (and Britain in the 1970s & 80s had a very different zeitgeist) there are vast swathes of books you need to knock off shelves and paintings that have to be covered up. You're also denying people the right to change - and isn't that what editors often cite as the most vital element of story? You may want to start here https://edtimes.in/world-famous-artists-who-were-detestable-people-in-reality/ but in the long run you'll probably need a spreadsheet or a database to thoroughly cross reference content against height above sea level on the moral high ground.
Thank you for pulling together the background information on this, Jason! For folks who are not on BlueSky and can't see the threads, I have a doc with the full text of Jemisin's, Lewis', and Finlay's threads here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/19L0IybvTTF_lBTh7PFbqOw16bLOiVPK8Tsog6wt3CtM/edit?usp=sharing
As a British writer (with at least 70 rejections from F&SF, including one of my favourite bits of personal feedback from CC Finlay ("by the end, I didn't know what it meant either")) I condemn what the NF stood for. But I also condemn the equally fascist approach of judging a story by anything other than the content of that story (and I can only assume Riley's tale was politically neutral, otherwise the excellent Thomas would have rejected it).
If you go down the route of having to judge both the artist and the art, particularly of past beliefs against current standards (and Britain in the 1970s & 80s had a very different zeitgeist) there are vast swathes of books you need to knock off shelves and paintings that have to be covered up. You're also denying people the right to change - and isn't that what editors often cite as the most vital element of story? You may want to start here https://edtimes.in/world-famous-artists-who-were-detestable-people-in-reality/ but in the long run you'll probably need a spreadsheet or a database to thoroughly cross reference content against height above sea level on the moral high ground.