Thinking about professional writers' associations

[hrj]

 This falls in the category of "things I'd like to think about in public but not on my official blog."

I've been following the Romance Writers of America (RWA) debacle play out this week in part because some authors whose work I admire are among the many people telling their stories of persistent long-term marginalization within the RWA, but I've also been following with interest because at various times I've pondered whether I should add the RWA to the set of professional organizations I belong to.

So far, my answer has always been "no" for two reasons. One is that I have yet to write a novel-length work that fits solidly and unambiguously into the category of "romance." This is a point on which I go back and forth, because I do feel that Daughter of Mystery and The Mystic Marriage can reasonably be classified as romances. And yet, I regularly see people who are established in the romance field and sympathetic to my work and who even claim to like my books, emphatically state that they aren't romance novels. Sometimes it's because they have too much non-romance plot. Sometimes it's because they don't have enough sex. Sometimes it's because I don't stick to a single couple. Who knows. But with that as background, I haven't felt comfortable approaching an organization for romance writers and claiming to belong there.

The second reason is that, even as I've seen cracks in the wall that had previously kept LGBTQ romances out of the RWA fold, the evidence I've seen has indicated that it was only m/m romances that were being given serious consideration. I've seen enough of that within supposedly queer venues. I didn't need another place to run into that wall. So even without ever trying to join RWA, I'd already gotten the message that I didn't belong there, even with the valiant attempts many people were making to open up the organization.

I do belong to two professional writers' organizations: SFWA and GCLS. And I already struggle to feel like I belong in each of them.

SFWA is the easier one. Science fiction and fantasy is my literary home. The genre I read the most. The genre I reflexively create stories in. I qualified for SFWA membership on the basis of three short stories, sold to anthologies published by well-known and highly-respected SFF publishers. But every time I think about participating in SFWA as an equal to the other members, a voice whispers in my ear, "Yeah, but you know those four fantasy novels you're so proud of? Those novels couldn't have gotten you into SFWA. You're a fraud." Because my novels were published by the wrong sort of publisher. They have the wrong sort of distribution. They aren't read and talked about by enough of the right sort of SFF people. It's not true. It's absolutely not true. I am a SWFA member and always will be. There are lots of SFWA-qualifying authors who did it the same way I did on the basis of meeting the minimum short story requirement. And yet it burns. Because at the moment I identify most strongly as someone who writes queer fantasy published by a queer press and those publications aren't "good enough" to get me into SFWA.

GCLS is more complicated. The Golden Crown Literary Society is for people writing and reading lesbian fiction. Solidly on target for my work, right? Except... I went to the annual GCLS conference two years in a row when my novels started coming out. And I didn't belong. I didn't fit in. Once more, it was because I was writing the wrong sort of books. And I was the wrong sort of lesbian. I didn't feel at home or welcomed by the people who were supposed to be my professional colleagues and community. I may write books with lesbians in them, but I'm not a "lesbian writer" and I'm not writing "lesbian books" in the sense that the GCLS community assumes and identifies with. I think it's wonderful that the organization exists and that it works as a professional community for so many people. That's why I continue to renew my membership every year. But it doesn't work for me. The things that I pour my heart and soul into to support lesbian historical fiction are entirely outside their scope of interest. And the type of stories that I write don't fit into their boxes.

So...I look at the people saying that RWA isn't salvageable and that a new, more diverse organization needs to be built. I think it's a wonderful idea. And if it happens, and if there is a context in which I could support it, I probably would. Even though it would be just one more professional authors' organization where I and my work wouldn't really fit in. Because I believe in the value of collective organizations. I think they can do great things to support not only their members but the larger industry they operate within. And it isn't their fault that my body of work is neither fish nor fowl nor good red herring and doesn't fit in any of their boxes.

Comments

[brooksmoses]

I'm curious if you've seen Mary Robinette Kowal's set of twitter posts inviting RWA people to join SFWA, because it sounds like it's at least trying to aim directly at feelings of "my stuff doesn't fit in SFWA" quite a lot like yours. Looking at the notes on qualifying markets that she points to, I don't know if your novels' publisher meets the "pays at least $3000 or 6 cents/word, before or on publication" requirement, but it sounds like that would be the only thing they wouldn't meet.

[hrj]

My publisher does not routinely pay advances. I got an advance of $250 on signing for the first book, but no advance on any of the others. So I'd have to try for the "net income of at least $3000 in the course of a single year" option, which I also can't meet. I wouldn't even be able to meet it if it were "at least $3000 in the course of a single year for all your books together."

[green_knight]

I read your books with a SFF lens rather than a Romance lens, and while they're plenty romantic, I'd file them squarely in SFF because of the general shape of the story. And I want you to shout them from the rooftops because they're great.

SFF has been doing much much better in terms of diversity in recent years, and I want that trend to continue.

[alithea]

Yeah, this.

I wish it wasn't so difficult to write neither fish nor fowl because SFF with a strong romantic element is my happy place.

[hrj]

And certain types of romantic SFF are doing quite well because they've established a space of their own (e.g., paranormal romance). I'm quite heartened that the concept of "Regency fantasy" exists sufficiently to have panels about it at conventions. But it can still be hard to be seen in that space when people are only looking at works that are published in SFF spaces. I mean, it would be lovely to have even a fraction of fans of the Glamourist Histories know that Alpennia exists, but how do I do that without sounding obnoxious?

[alithea]

I wish I knew! I recommend them to everyone I think might like them and I discovered them via a friend who I'd lent Swordspoint, but I'm not sure how she found them.

[hrj]

When I'm not being mopey about it, I marvel at how good word-of-mouth has been for Daughter of Mystery and how amazingly robust its "long tail" is being. Sales have held steady at for the last four years (out of 6 total). My next goal is to convince more of the people who tried and liked Daughter of Mystery to give the rest of the series a chance. But what I really want, at this point, is a brand new product that isn't locked in to the extremely ill-fitting context of a contemporary romance publisher.

[kareina]

I would dearly love to read a story you wrote that was published by a SSF publisher who did a good job marketing them to the right audience. You are a very good story teller and world builder, and I would love more people who would appreciate your books to have a chance to read them.

[hrj]

And yet the problem is that they're SFF being marketed (for some understanding of that term) by a primarily romance publisher. A publisher who has no understanding of how to market to SFF readers. A publisher who markets them as romance to people who are then upset because they "aren't romance" (by whatever definition that reader is using).