Two Announcements & A Clarification

As January gallops on at the speed of light, as Januaries are wont to do, I’m pleased to announce two awesome pieces of news: firstly, that I’m part of this year’s Shadow Clarke jury; and secondly, that I’ll be appearing at Swancon 2018 as a Guest of Honour. I’m incredibly excited on both counts, and look forward to participating in both events.

On a far more irritating note, I find myself moved to issue a clarification in light of recent fuckery. Based on nothing but circumstantial evidence and their own antipathy, certain persons in the Sad Puppy camp – namely Lou Antonelli, Dave Freer and Brad Torgersen, though the noxious Vox Day has also joined in – have decided that an Australian anti-Puppy blogger, known by the pseudonym Camestros Felapton, is really my husband Toby. I hadn’t heard of Camestros until they emailed me a few days ago to give me a heads-up and apologise that my family was being dragged into things, but though I left a comment on Brad Torgersen’s blog to that effect, he’s thus far declined to publish it, claiming instead that Camestros’s denial is really proof that he is, in fact, Toby.

I’ve already responded to the issue at length on Twitter, and would like to note that Dave Freer in particular is being super gross about it all, while Antonelli seems weirdly bitter about Toby’s hotness. Nonetheless, for the record: my husband is not Camestros, and anyone saying otherwise is gullible, incompetent, a liar or all three. Having already doubled down on their claims, I highly doubt that Antonelli, Freer or Torgersen is likely to issue a retraction, let alone an apology; the prospect of admitting to that sort of error – or worse, conceding that I’m capable of being right – really sticks in their puppyish craws. But, well. Facts are facts, and given how many of my friends and colleagues in the SFF community have actually met my husband and can attest to his non-Camestrosness, it’s pretty clear that their credibility in this matter is, as in so many others, nil.

So, with that out of the way – and with two wonderful SFF commitments to look forward to in 2018 – I’ll leave you with the random generator of Overly Specific SFF Subgenres I made today, and hope you have fun with it.