(no subject)

This rejection letter from William Sanders may be one of the worst things I've seen all month. Maybe all summer. I'm still boggling that someone would be an idiot enough to say something like that. But his response is just the cherry on top of the big pile of crap.

I'm still trying to figure out what part of Sanders' brain said, "Hmm, yeah, okay, it's perfectly fine to call a group of people 'sheet heads'. Let's put that in the letter." Somebody else can take over working on this problem, because I got nothing.

I think the only way to really articulate my rage is to enumerate all the varied things that are wrong with this rejection letter starting from smallest to greatest:

( All my reasons under the cut. Cut because I'm sure a lot of you have been made aware of this fiasco and are just as angry about it as I am )

Additional thoughts on Sandersgate

jenwrites makes a good point about whole William Sanders controversy.

I hope that people are smart enough to recognize that what Sanders said, vile as it is, is not the responsibility of the authors or other editors at Helix. Yes, I'd like to see him removed from his post or at least made to give a public apology. And yes, I do plan to stay away from Helix so long as he is associated with it.

But the authors who've been printed in Helix had no control over what he said. They shouldn't have to bear the weight of the consequences of his vitriolic racism.

Realistically, what could they have been expected to do? Make sure that everyone who works for Helix is a really nice person? Take a survey? Sit down and interview prospective editors? I'm sure most of them are just as horrified by what Sanders said as the rest of us. And I don't see how any of this is the fault of someone who got published in Helix. How were they to know that a few months or a year down the line that Sanders would say something so outrageous?

Despite this fact, they are, however, are in a fairly precarious professional position. For one, a writing credit on their resume that once meant something might stand to become useless, all because of one hateful idiot, and because they're getting branded by this and being associated with something bad that they have absolutely no control over.

Yes, it's very angry making, but let's try to make sure we don't lose focus. And the focus is that one person, William Sanders, had complete control over what went into that rejection letter. Therefore, only he should have to pay for it.


ETA: Let's be clear that I am referring to those authors who were published in Helix before the rejection letter was published and started becoming widely talked about. Let's also be clear that I'm giving a pass to those authors who had/have no idea of what kind of person Sanders is.

ETA 2: I think some discussion in all this should be given over to the question of how much responsibility an author carries for researching the publications they're submitting to, and what kind of information they can actually rely on in such research.

Yes, people have said that Sanders has been known for this type of behavior/attitude for a while, and that this is not his first time being this offensive.

This may be entirely true, *but* consider for a moment where I'm getting this information. So far, it's from word-of-mouth sources. Given, it's from people I trust, but what if it wasn't? What if a complete stranger came to this blog and saw the comments?

Is an author obligated to shun a certain publication because someone they don't know on the internet said, "Oh, he's a racist, he does this, this, and this". What kind of standard of information should be used?

As for Sanders, I think the proof is most definitely in the pudding. There is a letter, confirmed by Sanders to be his and *defended* by him, circulating around. And yes, I would hope that those who have seen it will immediately stop working with Helix.

But what about six months from now or a year? Is an author obligated to scour the blogosphere, searching out any hint of impropriety? And are they obligated to research *all* the editors and employees of a certain publication?

I mean, there *are* other editors at Helix. What if planned on submitting to, say, their poetry editor - are you obligated to make sure all the other people listed on the staff page have never done anything bad?

My point is this: saying ugly things and condemning those who have published with Helix in the past isn't really helping anything, and it's not fair.

As for those who will publish in the future, assuming they know about this (you know, not everyone is an internet addict, and last I checked, this sort of thing wasn't in the newspaper or anything), it's up to their individual consciences. While I would hope they would take a stance against Sanders' racism, I'm not going to assume that being published with Helix means they are also racist and that they support racism.