Hello my friends!
Please read this post in full.
I know I’ve gone out of commission the past couple weeks without warning. I apologize for that. I had some personal matters to take care of that had to take precedence. But I’m back.
We have things to celebrate! First of all, The Tall Tales Fiction Critique Community has reached over 100 subscribers, 30 of which are official Active Members. It’s so beautiful to watch this group steadily grow.
The other celebration worthy event I would like to note is that this is LGBTQ+ Pride Month! In my house, which extends to my Substacks, that’s a beautiful and important holiday. I would particularly like to feature some queer writers this month (and beyond) to honor it.
Submit your post here: COMMUNITY POST SUBMISSION FORM
There is another reason I’ve been a bit absent, however, and that one is less fun to talk about.
I’ve understood for a long time now that the beliefs and values of the wider Substack fiction community are very wide ranging. I want our place here to be one where all those differences can be peaceably explored and appreciated, but there is one value I mean to hold this community to which is not up for discussion. That is simply the principle of doing no harm to fellow people. From different perspectives, I suppose that sentiment may be defined differently, but here I define it as thus: We will not spread any story that in any way encourages the physical or emotional damage of any person, for any reason. In particular, it has become necessary to state in no uncertain terms that any fiction which intends to spread a philosophy which could in any way demean or delegitimize members of the LGBTQ+ community, members of any of the wide variety of world religious groups, or of any other community for that matter, is simply not welcome here.
Our guideline on Respect reads, “[…] Anything that has the potential to result in real world hatred or violence will especially not be tolerated. This applies both to feedback given and the content of our work.” I also said, “If a piece of work walks the line on this, I’ll still share it and the community can note on what side of the line they think it falls.” I realize now, though, that these types of messages often come through in more subtle ways in fiction, ways which might be invisible in an excerpt under 10,000 words. As the curator of this space, I became a bit overwhelmed by the task of making some of those calls and I may have become too lax about enforcing the guidelines, and for that again I apologize. If something ever feels off to any of you, please send me a message and let me know so I can work towards resolving it.
The reason I am saying this now, and another reason I’ve been quiet for the past few weeks is because, in that time, I have been having a discussion with Von - a current active member and writer of previous community post - in which he made clear to me that he purposefully uses his fiction towards ends that strongly violate that particularly important aforementioned guideline. I have been conflicted about how to proceed because I do not want to shut anyone out, but I also need to protect the psychological safety of our community members, myself included. I will not pretend to have come up with any perfect solution, but my plan right now is this:
I am wiping the slate clean as far as submissions are concerned. If you have submitted a piece of work, either for community critique or print publication, please reflect on this guideline and then feel free to submit again. Please understand, at this time, if a work strongly promotes one religious group’s beliefs over another, I will have to hold it in violation of this guidelines and deem it ineligible to be featured. On the submission form, I have added a question about the larger theme of your work. Please answer it honestly. If you feel doing so would bar your submission from being accepted, then please just understand this is not the right place for your work. If you’re genuinely unsure, please message me directly. I’m happy to talk about it.
Besides just me, the community in general has been a little quiet. Not many submissions have been flooding in. That’s ok, of course, maybe folks are on vacation or something, but I’d really love to see it liven back up. I’m hoping this clarity of our values will help with that.
I’m also bringing this conversation into the Chat feature because I want members of this community to be able to talk with one another without my active facilitation of every interaction. I am limiting the ability to start threads to “paid subscribers,” but remember to just fill out the Active Member form and I’ll comp you behind the paywall.
MEMBERSHIP APPLICATION FORM HERE
There are also some exciting developments regarding the print publication, but I’m not quite ready to announce them yet. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, read this:
If you want to submit work or pitch a story idea to the publication, fill out this form here: https://forms.gle/fXLddkkdEYvEnRyw6
I love this community and everything it stands for. I look forward to growing it with you.
Remember, submit your queer stories now and get your Pride Post published!