Do I regret taking on The Factory or trying to help with GCWS? NO. Trying to restart trust in a new career mid-life in an industry swimming in performativity while mentally disabled is a fucking slog. People have been burned, I get that. I'm trying to show people I've got nothing to hide.
(whispers) No we can't delay The Factory because the book is due for the grant. We can't get the grant money until we pay the translators in full. We can't pay them in full because the GFM had to cover *paying* the GCWS authors in more than just slogans after it got no promotion from the Con...
It was such a wonderful experience at GenCon Writer's Symposium (GCWS) because of all the work & challenges @edebell.com and committee had to carry to make this conference include all humans. I'm just shaking my head over hearing with what E.D.E Bell and committee had to go thru. Sigh.
I don’t believe they changed their oversight procedures. AFAIK, the GCWS leadership team had always confirmed featured guest lists with GC before inviting them, which they did not do this time. Kendall was a great invite, and GC didn’t object to her per se. They objected to being blindsided.
I will not be saying any more regarding GCWS. I am hopeful the next committee will do good work. If there are official questions on what I've written, I'm happy to answer them, but I've said what I have to say. I'm sad. But I don't regret it.
No, I've worked with enough abusers for pay, doing it for a loss while being insulted is quite not good. But I was helping people at GCWS. My presence meant a lot to people.
A new gcws committee is already forming and I don't see that being a focus. Otherwise they'd be doing it now.
I also understand why a lot of privileged writers aren't speaking up, because they still want to go to GCWS. I get it, but I would also hope those writers will help promote our pre-order campaign. These books are worth it, and the press now *really* needs it: www.backerkit.com/call_to_acti...
From Atthis Arts - Two Immersive Stories for Our Times from Ukraine and Ghana
I am hopeful a new committee will form and do good work, but I don't know how they'll navigate if supporting them means supporting this abusive Gen Con leadership team. I'm not saying don't support gcws, as nothing is clean. I guess hear from them. Won't be me, sigh.
The entire conversation in the GCWS discord is about how to move on without me, nothing about the actual harm this is causing.