ffs, amanda craig novellist dropped from mslexia

Watching Amanda Craig continue to champion KMH's new book and denounce bullying while the latter has accused her of sharing her name with others and been quite bitchy to her... well, it's quite something.

The Rival Letter has been updated with plenty of other names now. Very heavy on the children's publishing side, so we can expect many (more) super-woke books out over the next while.

Post today 💪

Aarrgghhh just saw that Audrey Niffennegger tweeted in support of Mslexia. I shouldn't ever look at twitter. It is full of disappointment.

HA 😂😂 Mslexia being eaten. Thanks @SunsetBeetch

and good post by Baddiel

good ol Baddiel

HAHAHAHAHAHA!

"Hi
@Mslexia
‘identify as’ is dated and wrong because it’s invalidating and implies it’s a choice rather than a state of being. Please re-write and repost."

twitter.com/dianasaladpot/status/1311260929896730625?s=20

twitter.com/Baddiel/status/1311274245197049856?s=20

We aren't all as untouchable as JKR, and even she might be fine financially but this must wear her down.

It's depressing, I have read and subscribed to Mslexia since maybe 2006? But no longer feel they are doing what they claim to, which is support women writers. What a betrayal.

JKR's publishing house came up against similar problems, smelled bullshit and told the disgruntled people to leave. It's a shame Mslexia didn't show such backbone, but instead caved to a loud, manipulative few and not their many loyal subscribers.

I can't write, either.

Tbf, my PhD isn't in something you'd immediately you say anything genuinely enthusiastic about. The usual response is, 'Oh.'

Apparently she is a Doctor of Accents

Anyone else just get a flashback to that episode of Friends when Monica's mum asks her if the doctor she's seeing is a real doctor and she replies:

www.getyarn.io/yarn-clip/082e5647-3b9c-4793-a908-2b68c6bece78

I went through a phase of reading about linguistics until Steven Pinker developed something of an 'unusual perspective', and I couldn't muster up much further enthusiasm for the subject.

Also linguists bang on about language and prejudice while contorting over the one word 'woman'. Charlatans.

“Aye is that right then, hen?” (Glasgow - said with head tilted, arms crossed and with a slight sneer). I wonder if body language and tone is part of the whole doctoring thing...

Actually I’ve never heard of this as a topic. I had to take a class in linguistics for my degree (still traumatised).

My message to Dr Leach (in my cockney accent) is "You're aving a giraffe"

A doctor of accents... what like “how ya doin’ hen”? Or “ho missus, yur tawkin’ pure shite by the way!”?

I googled Hannah Leach. Apparently she is a Doctor of Accents, notably that of Stoke-on-Trent. She's at my alma mater now, Newcastle University.

On her Bio page she says she watches Pointless. That one with, you know, Alexander Armstrong, who signed that letter.

www.hannahleach.co.uk/?page_id=81

Oh, you spotted that too?

Red flag.

I've just reread their statement again. Did they really use "sexual preference"? Do they think that orientation is a lifestyle choice? Maybe they'd like to clarify their stance on bepenised "lesbians"? So very disappointed with them.

To refuse to stand up against threats and bullying is therefore to condone it. No ifs and buts - it’s just what is right and wrong - and these people can’t see beyond their own noses.

Sorry, Random. We have to draw our own lines, our own boundaries, though. And standing up for JKR, who has been subject to the most horrendous pile ons (pages and pages of death threats, and whole fucking hashtag) doesn't mean one is piling on anyone else. I think respectful withdrawal is perfectly reasonable.

Well done Random. It's a difficult thing to do something like that - competitions seem like they are crucial to new writers and it was lovely to think there were competitions which were exclusively for women. Female writers need supporting. You did the right thing, though. Can you imagine how gut-wrenching it would feel to be picked as the winner by an organisation like this? If your story is strong it will place elsewhere but that's not really even the point is it?

I'm a bit gutted by this, as I had submitted a story to the short story competition that Craig was to judge. I wrote to Mslexia yesterday and requested that my entry be withdrawn. And I tried to explain my reasons. But there is a horrible, awful sadness in trying to make that explanation, because no matter how respectfully and gently you write, there is always this horrible fear that your words will just somehow be filtered out or magicked into some sort of alleged bigotry. If they couldn't hear that letter signed by Craig on its own terms, if they couldn't see how far it was from any shred of transhobia, how can they hear my words? How can they hear any words at all on the terms on which the words are uttered?
How completely devastating that an organisation like Mslexia, dedicated to words, is deafening itself. How completely devasating that an organisation like Mslexia, dedicated to women, is silencing them.
I really feel the loss of the competition, not becasue I had a reaslistic chance of winning but because it is just such a nice, cheering thing to participate in competitions of this sort. Or at least it should be.

But I'm glad I withdrew. At first it felt like withdrawing was simply to avoid endorsing and financing something that has gone so badly astray. But the more I think of it, the more I feel that the competition, and the judging process, is actually completely flawed by the attitudes of the remaining judge and the senior staff at Mslexia who supported her. I absolutely don't want to join in or support any kind of piling in on her, but how can someone who so determinedly misreads people's motivations and the significance, the meaning, of their words be entrusted with assessing anyone's stories? It's a nonsense. And such a sad, sad, state of affairs.

I have cancelled my subscription. I'm not supporting Mslexia again. They can honestly get to fuck.