Not worth the pixels...

A comment or opinion on the Internet is as trustworthy as the reputation of the person who made it.

Which is to say anything posted anonymously or under a pseudonym is probably a lie or bullshit.

"Nobody ever volunteered for a pogrom"

Here's a riddle:

What do you get if you cross a cesspool with an echo chamber?

File 770.

Mike Glyer, who was rewarded for playing Assassins' Creed with the Sad Puppies in 2015 with two Hugo awards last year, likes to post stuff from the s-f losers at the Uncool Kids table so his perpetual internet lynch mob can mock and disrespect them

So of course he picked up my ruminations about the potential of a blacklist.

The usual idiots and assholes that propagate File 770 held forth as evil people are wont to do under the cover of anonymity.

A few said they didn't believe the people who personally recounted their stories of being told they were no longer welcome at certain publishers after the Trump victory.

They said they wanted names.

Uh-huh. These sons-of-bitches are posting anonymously on File 770 but they want the names of the victims of their little cabal to expose themselves.

Back in 1976 there was a made for TV movie called Victory at Entebbe", about Operation Entebbe, when Israeli commandos freed the hostages on an airliner that had been flown to Entebbe, Uganda.

That was back when Idi Amin was dictator of Uganda. The terrorists had separated the passengers with Israeli passports for - God knows what end. The Israelis moved in and, in a lightning raid on July 4, 1976, freed the hostages. Only three died in the mayhem.

The leader of the Israeli force, Johnathan Netanyahu - the brother of the current prime minister- was among the five Israeli casualties.

In "Victory at Entebbe", Richard Dreyfuss played Jonathan Netanyahu. Helen Hayes played a character meant to portray Dora Bloch.

After the raid, the commandos learned one hostage had not been at the airport. The 74-year old Mrs. Bloch had previously taken ill and was a hospital instead. Of course, after the raid no one ever heard of her again. Reports almost 30 years later said witnesses said she was shot and her body dumped outside Kampala.

In the movie, there is a hostage who expresses feelings of guilt because when the terrorists sorted out the Israelis - and some people who were obviously Jewish - he escaped because he had an American passport and a name not obviously Jewish.

(In the scene where the terrorists are sorting out the Jews, one man objects because he has a Belgian passport, and the terrorist lady mocks him because his name is Moshe Meyer as she shoves him in the room with the others.)

Anyway, Mrs. Bloch comforts the other hostage who later has feelings of guilt, saying how he behaved was perfectly reasonable.

She says "Nobody ever volunteered for a pogrom."

And that pretty much sums of my attitude towards the scumbags at File 770 who want me to name the names of the people who confided in me their tales of blacklisting.

Writers conference in Richmond

The Agile Writer Conference is coming January 28th. The conference features 20 seminars taught by experts in writing, editing, self-publishing, and social media marketing. All designed to help the beginning writer get the tools they need to write, edit, publish, and market their novel.

Tickets are on sale now at http://AgileWriters.com. For a limited time you can get $10 off the ticket price of $85 when you use Promo Code AGILE17 for a discount price of $75. Seating is limited so buy your ticket today!

I will be teaching "The Importance of Dialogue" at 3 p.m. on Saturday

Regarding my post of Monday where I raised the question of whether blacklists are real...

I don't often approve anonymous comments, but I did in this one case, since it sounded true, and given the subject matter, it's completely understandable why someone would prefer to remain anonymous:

"Day after the election, when I posted a picture of myself with a Trump hat, a famous editor of whom almost anyone would know her name, had her assistant message me to tell me how awful I am, that I'm not going to be invited to write in anthologies again, coupled with the threat that the publishing industry is small and word travels fast.

"Blackballing is real. But you are not alone."

POSTSCRIPT: As a result of this discussion, I received this PM, which I am keeping confidential, of course:

"The black list is real. I don't want to be named either but an editor I know flat out told me he was thinking about working with me again but after I supported Trump publicly he doesn't see how we can ever work together again

"He is a big whig editor at a conservative outlet that publishes books and I'm on my second book. All offers of help dried up."

Is there a blacklist?

A colleague asked me the other day if I felt there is a blacklist in literary s-f against non-PC writers.

I replied I don't know, there's no way to tell for sure; that's the nature of a blacklist - it's a conspiracy.

I will say that before 2015, when I was a double Sad Puppy Hugo nominee, my rejections almost always included invitations to submit to that market again.

Now, that is very uncommon, and in fact almost all my rejections now end with "best of luck" or "good luck with your writing" - and no encouragement to submit again.

Of course, there is always the possibility my writing skills have declined in the past couple of years - but that would run counter to experience.

Being a glorified hobbyist in the field, it's not that big a deal to me. I really write for my own personal pleasure and the enjoyment of my fans. If I tried to make a living as a short story writer, I'd be as broke as Howard Waldrop.

Still, I'm left scratching my head, because the verbiage of the rejections I receive has definitely shifted, and wording of the various "good luck in your writing" observations is very consistent.

The year's tally

Now that 2016 is past, I'll note I had nine short story publications this year:

1. “Captain of the Clouds” – Aurora Wolf, January. 2016

2. “Higher Powers” – Sci-Phi Journal, February 2016

3. “The Milky Way Dance Hall” – Decision Points anthology. May 2016

4. “Lone Star, Lost Star” – Fiction on the Web, July 31, 2016

5. “The Yellow Flag” – Sci-Phi Journal, August 2016

6. “And He Threw His Hands Up in the Air” – Siren’s Call, No. 28 August 2016

7. “Time Like a Rope” – Silver Blade magazine, October 2016

8. "Three Twilight Zone Variations on a High School Reunion" - 3rd Spectral Book of Horror Stories, Oct. 31, 2016

9. “If You Were a Dinah Shore, My Love” – Gallery of Curiosities podcast, Dec. 26, 2016

The first and the last - "Captain of the Clouds" and "If You Were a Dinah Shore, my Love" - are both alternate histories.

"Time Like a Rope" and "He Threw His Hands Up In the Air" are secret histories. "Time Like a Rope" is also a time travel story.

"The Milky Way Dance Hall" and "Three Twilight Zone Variations on a High School Reunion" are both Twilight Zone stories. "Twilight Zone Variations" is also a ghost story.

"Higher Powers" and "The Yellow Flag" are both space travel stories.

"Lone Star, Lost Star" is just wacky and satirical

The arrival of "Dinah Shore"

Gallery of Curiosities went live a couple of days earlier than anticipated.

The double bill features my story "If You Were a Dinah Shore, My Love". This is my 104th short story published since I started in 2003 and my ninth in 2016. This my first story ever published via podcast.

I think both stories are great - and Gallery did a fantastic job with the recordings - but if you want to go straight to "Dinah Shore", it starts at 19:30. Here is the link:

Hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas, and is recovering nicely!